The Project Gutenberg eBook of Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, by Rev. J. B. Marsden.

EDITED BY THE
Rev. J. B. MARSDEN, m.a.,
AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF THE EARLY AND LATER PURITANS,” ETC. ETC.

LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY;
56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD;
AND 164, PICCADILLY:
AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The Editor would make his kind acknowledgments to the Church Missionary and London Missionary Societies for the free use of the hitherto unpublished correspondence of Mr. Samuel Marsden in their hands; and to J. S. Nicholas, Esq., who accompanied Mr. Marsden on his first visit to New Zealand, for the use of a valuable manuscript account of his residence in New South Wales, containing much information respecting Mr. Marsden. He has also had before him a manuscript life of Mr. Marsden by Lieut. Sadleir of Paramatta, from which several extracts are made. And lastly, he would acknowledge the courtesy of those surviving friends who have placed in his hands Mr. Marsden’s autograph letters to themselves or deceased members of their families. From these several sources the work has been chiefly compiled.

The Editor may be permitted to add, that the similarity of his name having led to the general conclusion (which however is incorrect) that he was related to Mr. Samuel Marsden, he has been repeatedly urged to [Pg iv]publish his life. At length this request being renewed by the Religious Tract Society, into whose hands some valuable papers and documents had fallen, he was induced to comply with their wishes, under the conviction that the facts and incidents, as well as the moral grandeur, of Mr. Marsden’s life, were too important to be suffered to lie any longer in comparative obscurity. There are ample materials for a much larger volume; but of course the Editor has been obliged to select what [Pg v]appeared to be most suitable for general usefulness.

CONTENTS.

	PAGE
Introductory Note	iii
CHAPTER I.
Early life of Mr. Samuel Marsden—His appointment to New South Wales—Voyage, and arrival in the Colony	1
CHAPTER II.
Discovery and early History of New South Wales—Becomes a Penal Settlement—Its state, moral and religions, on Mr. Marsden’s arrival	11
CHAPTER III.
Mr. Marsden appointed to the Magistracy—Objections to this considered—Cultivates Land—Charge of Secularity considered—His connexion with the London Missionary Society, and care of its Polynesian Mission—Revisits England in 1807	26
Distant view of Sydney (Engraving)
CHAPTER IV.
Various measures devised for the benefit of New South Wales—The establishment of Missions in New Zealand—Friendship with Dr. Mason Good	47
[Pg vi]CHAPTER V.
Return to the Colony—Duaterra—His strange Adventures—Mr. Marsden’s Labours in New South Wales—Aborigines—Their Habits—Plans for their Civilization	63
CHAPTER VI.
Mr. Marsden’s Correspondence with the London Missionary Society—Buys the brig Active—His First Voyage to New Zealand—Journal of Events	85
CHAPTER VI.
Mr. Marsden’s Correspondence with the London Missionary Society—Buys the brig Active—His First Voyage to New Zealand—Journal of Events	85
CHAPTER VII
Death of Duaterra—Trials of Mr. Marsden in the Colony—Libel of Philo-free—Letter to the Rev. George Burder—To Dr. Mason Good—Sympathy of his Friends in England—Congratulations of the 46th Regiment, and Mr. M’s acknowledgment—Letters of Lord Gambier, Rev. C. Simeon, and Mrs. Fry	108
CHAPTER VIII.
Tooi and Teterree—Mr. Marsden’s Second Voyage to New Zealand—Progress of the Gospel there—Shunghie—His ferocity—Mr. Marsden returns to New South Wales—Third Voyage to New Zealand—Malicious charges brought against him in his absence—A Commission of Inquiry—Its result—Letters, etc.—Approbation of the Government	129
The Bay of Islands, New Zealand (Engraving)
CHAPTER IX.
Fourth Visit to New Zealand—Trials and Successes of the various Missions—Shipwreck and Danger of Mr. Marsden and the Rev. S. Leigh—Returns home—Letter to Avison Terry, Esq.	167
[Pg vii]CHAPTER X.
Aborigines—South Sea Mission—Fresh Slanders on Mr. Marsden’s character—His Pamphlet in self-defence—Letter of Messrs. Bennett and Tyerman—Libels and Action at Law—Verdict—Case of Ring—Pastoral Letters of Mr. Marsden: To a Lady; On the Divinity of Christ—Fifth Voyage to New Zealand—Letters, etc.	184
CHAPTER XI.
Death of Dr. Mason Good—Malicious charges brought against Mr. Marsden and confuted—Sixth Voyage to New Zealand—Frightful state of the Island—Battle of the Maories—Their Cannibalism—Progress of the Mission—Mr. Marsden’s return—Death of Mrs. Marsden—Anticipation of his own decease	212
CHAPTER XII.
State of New South Wales—The Aborigines—Cruelties practised upon them—Attempts to civilize and convert them—They fail—Mr. Marsden’s Seventh Visit to New Zealand—His Daughter’s Journal—Affection of the Natives—Progress of the Mission—Danger from European vices—Returns in H. M. S. Rattlesnake to Sydney	232
Paramatta Church (Engraving)
CHAPTER XIII.
Mr. Marsden’s ministerial pursuits and journeys—Love of the Country and of Patriarchal story—His Old Age—Its mental features—Anecdotes—Love of Children—Bishop Broughton—His reverence for Mr. Marsden’s character—Mr. Marsden’s views of Death, etc.—His Habits of Prayer—His Illness and Death	260
CHAPTER XIV.
Character of Mr. Marsden—His Life and Labours	280
APPENDIX I.
Progress of the Gospel and of Civilization in New Zealand, since Mr. Marsden’s Decease	295
APPENDIX II.
State and Prospects of the Protestant Mission at Tahiti, under the French Protectorate	311

LIFE
OF
THE REVEREND SAMUEL MARSDEN.

CHAPTER I.

Samuel Marsden, whose life is sketched in the following pages, was not ennobled by birth or rank, nor was he greatly distinguished by splendid talents. Yet he was, in the true sense, a great man; and he was an instance, one of the most striking of modern times, of the vast results which may be accomplished when an honest heart, a clear head, and a resolute mind and purpose, are directed, under the influence of the grace of God, to the attainment of a noble object. While he lived he shared the usual lot of those whose large philanthropy outruns the narrow policy of those around them. His motives were seldom understood, and in consequence he was thwarted and maligned. Nor was it till death had removed him from the scene that either the grandeur of his projects or the depth of his self-denying, unobtrusive piety was generally appreciated. At length, however, his character has begun to be revered. It is perceived that he was, at least, a far-sighted man;[Pg 2] and that in his own labours he was laying the foundations for the successes of thousands; while in the church of Christ he is had in reverence as the Apostle of New Zealand—a title of high distinction, yet by no means misapplied to one who, in the simplicity of his faith as well as in zeal and self-denying labours, was truly an apostolic man.

Of his early life the memorials are but scanty. His father was a tradesman at Horsforth, a village in the neighbourhood of Leeds; and both his parents are known in the traditions of his family as having been persons of integrity and piety, attached to the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodists. He was born on the 28th of July, 1764, and after receiving the elements of learning at a village school, was placed in the free grammar-school of Hull, of which the celebrated Dr. Joseph Milner, the ecclesiastical historian, and brother to the no less eminent Dr. Isaac Milner, dean of Carlisle, was then head master. Here he was on the same form with Dr. Dealtry, the late rector of Clapham and chancellor of Winchester. Of his early youth little more is known; for his modesty, rather than any sentiment of false shame, to which indeed his whole nature was opposed, seldom permitted him to speak of himself, or to dwell upon the adventures or incidents of his early life. He was removed from school to take his share in his father’s business; but he now had higher thoughts, and longed to be a minister of Christ. That he was a young man of more than ordinary promise is at once evident from the fact, that he was adopted by the Elland Society and placed at St. John’s college, Cambridge, to study for the ministry of the church of England.

The Elland Society, so called from the parish in[Pg 3] which its meetings are held, is an institution to which the cause of evangelical truth in the church of England has been much indebted for the last sixty or seventy years. It is simply an association of pious members of the church of England, who assist young men of enlightened zeal and suitable talents with the means of obtaining an education with a view to the Christian ministry. In its early days, the funds were supplied by Thornton, Simeon, Wilberforce, and others like minded with themselves; and the society was managed by a few devoted clergymen of Yorkshire and the neighbouring counties; amongst whom were Venn of Huddersfield and Joseph Milner. To this society Samuel Marsden was introduced by his friend the Reverend Mr. Whittaker, a neighbouring clergyman; and not without some apprehensions, it is said, on the part of the latter, lest his simple and unassuming manner should create a prejudice against him. Such anxieties were superfluous. The Milners themselves had fought their way to eminence from the weaver’s loom, and well knew how to distinguish real worth, however unpretending. The piety, the manly sense, and the modest bearing of the candidate, at once won the confidence of the examiners; and he was sent to college at their expense.

Of his college life we are not aware that any memorials have been preserved. He was, no doubt, a diligent student; and from the warm friendship which grew up between himself and Mr. Simeon in after life, we may infer that he profited from his ministry. He had not yet completed his studies or taken his degree, when, to his great surprise, an offer was made to him by the government, of a chaplaincy in what was then designated “His Majesty’s territory of New South[Pg 4] Wales.” That a post of such importance should have been offered, unsolicited, to a student hitherto quite unknown, is supposed to have been owing to the influence of Mr. Wilberforce. He had already secured the appointment of more than one pious chaplain to the colony, and from its commencement had always been anxious to promote its moral and religious welfare. At first, Mr. Marsden declined the tempting offer; for such it undoubtedly was to a young man in his circumstances, although no human sagacity could then foresee its vast importance. He was naturally anxious to complete his studies, and he had a deep and unaffected sense of his own incompetence, while yet so young and inexperienced. The offer, however, was repeated and pressed upon him, when he modestly replied, that he was “sensible of the importance of the post—so sensible, indeed, that he hardly dared to accept it upon any terms, but if no more proper person could be found, he would consent to undertake it.” The choice reflects, no doubt, great credit upon the sagacity and spiritual discernment of those who made it. “Young as he was,” says one who knew him well in after life, Dr. Mason Good, “he was remarkable for a firmness of principle, an intrepidity of spirit, a suavity of manner, a strong judgment, and above all, a mind stored with knowledge and deeply impressed with religious truth, which promised the happiest results.”

He was accordingly appointed as second chaplain to the settlement in New South Wales, by a royal commission, bearing date 1st January, 1793. He was ordained shortly afterwards, and proceeded at once to Hull, from whence he was to take his passage in a convict transport, the only conveyance, at that period,[Pg 5] for the far distant colony; a banishment of half a world. On the 21st of April, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Tristan, in whom, for upwards of thirty years, he found not only an affectionate and faithful wife, but a companion singularly qualified to share his labours and lighten his toils. Disinterested and generous as he was, even to a fault, it was to her admirable management that not only his domestic comfort, but even his means of assisting others so profusely, was owing in no small degree. While at Hull, an incident occurred which shows to what an extent, even thus early in life, he possessed the art of gaining the respect and warm affection of those who knew him however slightly. While waiting for the sailing of the ship, he was frequently asked to officiate in various churches. One Sunday morning, when he was just about to enter the pulpit, a signal-gun was heard; his ship was about to sail, and it was of course impossible for him to preach. Taking his bride under his arm, he immediately left the church and walked down to the beach; but he was attended by the whole congregation, who, as if by one movement, followed in a body. From the boat into which he stepped he gave his parting benedictions, which they returned with fervent prayers, and tender farewells. He now found himself in a new world. What contrast could indeed be greater, or more distressing? The calm, though vigorous pursuits of Cambridge, and the pious circle of warm Christian friends, were at once exchanged for the society of felons, and the doubly irksome confinement of a convict-ship. From his journal, which has been fortunately preserved, we make the following extracts, omitting much which our space does not permit us to insert.

It was not till the 30th of September that the fleet in which his ship sailed finally left Cork. The war with France was then raging, and her fleets were still formidable; so that our merchantmen only ventured to put to sea in considerable numbers, and under the convoy of a ship of war.

The two following entries will be read with pain. The mercantile marine of England is still capable of great improvement in matters of religion, but we hope the instances are few in which the commander of a first rate merchant vessel would follow the examples they record.

But Mr. Marsden was not one of those who are discouraged by a first repulse. The next Sunday relates his triumph, and, from this time, divine service, whenever the weather allowed, was statedly performed, though the captain was a grossly immoral man, and Mr. M. was constantly subject to annoyance.

In this humble yet trustful spirit, Mr. Marsden entered his new field of labour. On board the ship there were a number of convicts, whose daring wickedness—in which, indeed, they were countenanced by the whole conduct of the captain and his crew—grieved his righteous soul from day to day; while at the same time it prepared him, in some measure, for scenes[Pg 9] amidst which his life was to be spent. “I am surrounded,” he says, “with evil-disposed persons, thieves, adulterers, and blasphemers. May God keep me from evil, that I may not be tainted by the evil practices of those amongst whom I live.” His last sermon was preached, “notwithstanding the unwillingness there was in all on board to hear the word of God,” from the vision of dry bones (Ezekiel xxvxii.) “I found some liberty, and afterwards more comfort in my own soul. I wish to be found faithful at last, and to give up my account with joy to God.” To add to his anxieties, Mrs. Marsden was confined on shipboard, in stormy weather, and under circumstances peculiarly distressing, “though both the mother and daughter did well.” But the same day the scene brightened; the perils and privations of the voyage were drawing to a close, and they were in sight of their future home—that magnificent Australia—destined hereafter to assume, perhaps, a foremost place among the nations of the earth, though scarcely known to Europe when Mr. Marsden first stepped upon its shores; and valued only by the British government as a settlement for the refuse of our jails. He thus gives utterance to the feelings of a grateful heart:—

In a few days, Mr. Marsden had taken up his abode[Pg 10] in the “barracks” of Paramatta, a few miles from Port Jackson, and entered upon his arduous and toilsome duties as chaplain to the colony. His first Sunday in Australia is thus described:—“Saw several persons at work as I went along, to whom I spoke, and warned them of the evil of sabbath-breaking. My mind was deeply affected with the wickedness I beheld going on. I spoke from the 6th chapter of Revelation.—‘Behold the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?’ As I was returning home, a young man followed me into the wood, and told me how he was distressed for the salvation of his soul. He seemed to manifest the strongest marks of contrition, and to be truly awakened to a sense of his danger. I hope the Lord will have many souls in this place.” He had, for a short time, a single associate, in the Rev. Mr. Johnson, the senior chaplain, a good and useful minister, but unequal to the difficulties peculiar to his situation. This gentleman soon relinquished his appointment, and returned to England. And thus Mr. Marsden was left alone with a charge which might have appalled the stoutest heart, and under which even his would have given way, had he not learned to cast himself for help on One who comforted the apostle, under circumstances of the keenest suffering, with the assurance, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” On that grace our missionary chaplain trusted; and he found it all-sufficient.

CHAPTER II.

The colony in which Mr. Marsden was now entering on his labours, and on which he was to leave the impression both of his holy zeal, and his far-sighted practical wisdom, is one of whose history our readers may naturally wish to have some account. We shall therefore suspend our narrative for a few pages, and lay before them a brief sketch of the earlier days of the great Australian colony.

Europeans are indebted for their first knowledge of the existence of the vast country which now bears the name of Australia, to the enterprise of Spain and Holland, when these nations were at the head of the world’s commerce, two centuries and a half ago. In 1607, Luis de Torres, who was sent out by the Spanish government on a voyage of discovery, passed through the straits which still bear his name, and which separate New Guinea from the greater continent of Australia; but he was not aware of its vast extent, and merely concluded that the coasts along which he sailed were those of a group of islands. Just about the same time, the Dutch explored the eastern shores of what has since been termed the Gulf of Carpentaria; and their knowledge of Australia was extended by subsequent voyagers, of whom the chief was Abel Tasman. In 1642, he discovered Van Diemen’s Land, which was long supposed to be a part of the great[Pg 12] continent named by the Dutch New Holland—the Australia of modern times. Known as Tasmania, Van Diemen’s Land now immortalizes the great sea-captain. But these discoveries led to no immediate results of importance; and for upwards of a century New Holland was laid down, in charts and maps, as a region whose coasts were not defined, and whose interior was utterly unknown. Early in the reign of George the Third a noble spirit of enterprise animated the British government. Voyages of discovery were undertaken in the Southern Seas, under Captains Wallace, Carteret, and others; and at length the celebrated Captain Cook may be said to have retrieved a new world from romance and fable, and to have made it over to England and to the best interests of mankind.

On the evening of the 19th of April, 1770, unknown land was descried from the mast-head of the “Resolute,” of which Cook was the commander. The rugged coast of a vast continent seemed to extend far beyond the sweep of the telescope; and as the sun went down, the vessel, after soundings, dropped her anchor within a spacious bay. The smoke of distant fires told that the land was not without inhabitants; and it was determined, if possible, to open a communication with them. In the morning, a boat was rowed on shore, and the first Englishman set his foot upon Australia. A forest extended to the beach, and dipped its branches into the sea; while an abundant variety of beautiful flowering shrubs delighted the eye; and from this circumstance “Botany Bay” received its European name. A dismal solitude prevailed; for the natives, one or two of whom had been observed crouching behind the rocks, fled in terror to the woods as the boat[Pg 13] approached. After spending a few hours on shore in search of water and fresh vegetables, and in the vain attempt to communicate with the savages, the boat returned at night. The bay was found to abound with fish; and the sailors were glad to relieve the weary monotony of their many months at sea, as well as to provide an agreeable change from their diet of salt meat and mouldy biscuits, in fishing both with nets and lines. Fish too was a wholesome diet for the sick; and at this period, even in the navy, sickness, especially from the scurvy, almost invariably attended a long voyage.

The natives, seeing the men thus employed, discovered in our sailors some tastes common to themselves, and at length ventured towards the fishermen in a couple of light canoes. After paddling about for some time in evident suspense, they ventured to approach the boat, then came still nearer and shouted, and having caught a few beads which were thrown out to them, immediately retired. Gaining courage from the peaceful conduct of our sailors, who were instructed to continue their fishing without any attempt to follow them, the natives soon returned with a canoe laden with fine fish, which they readily bartered for such trifles as the boat was provided with. They were invited, by signs, to come on board the ship lying in the offing, which they soon ventured to do in considerable numbers. At first, they seemed harmless, scarcely understanding the use of the various novelties on ship board, and not much surprised by them; and honest, until the sight of ten or twelve fine turtle crawling on the deck proved too great a temptation. First, by signs they begged for some of these, and then, not succeeding, made a childish attempt to carry[Pg 14] them off by force. They set little value on the beads and baubles which generally have so great a charm for savages. Nothing tempted them to barter but turtle or iron tools and nails, neither of which could well be spared. On shore it was found almost impossible to approach them; such was the distrust and dismay with which they evidently regarded the intrusion of their strange visitors. On further acquaintance the savages were discovered to be a singularly helpless and timid race. Their country appeared to be very thinly peopled, and that chiefly along the coast, for fish were plentiful and wild animals were few. Of the latter, the largest was scarcely bigger than a greyhound, and the first sight of it caused great amazement to the sailors, one of whom rushed into the tent which had been pitched on the shore for the use of the sick, declaring, with horror depicted on his countenance, that he had seen an evil spirit. He described it as having assumed the colour of a mouse with two fore-paws, but that it sat upon its hind quarters “like a Christian.” An animal answering this description was soon after shot, and the flesh, when roasted, proved excellent food; it was called by the natives the kangaroo, and had hitherto been quite unknown to Europeans. There were no beasts of prey; unless wild dogs deserved that title, but the long grass concealed vast numbers of snakes and scorpions. At night, the forests were disturbed by the hideous flight of huge bats; by day, they echoed to the whooping of cockatoos and the screaming of innumerable parrots. Crows and a few wild pigeons were occasionally seen, and the rocks abounded with wild fowl, while now and then an eagle might be seen soaring far above. Such were the first impressions which Englishmen[Pg 15] received, from their great voyager, of that vast continent.

On the return of Captain Cook, the accounts he brought home of New South Wales suggested to the government the idea of making it a vast prison-house for convicted felons, who had now become a sore burden, as well as a cause of grave uneasiness, to this country. Its distance and its solitude recommended it to their choice. It would effectually rid the mother country of a dangerous class—this was the argument of the selfish; and it would afford the lost the opportunity of starting afresh in life—this was the hope of the few benevolent and humane who cared for the welfare of convicted felons. No one thought of the future grandeur of Australia. None wrote or spoke at present of our duties to the aboriginal savages, or probably wasted a thought on the subject of their conversion.

In 1778, Botany Bay was selected by Sir Joseph Banks, who had sailed with Captain Cook as a naturalist and scientific observer, as a most eligible site for a penal settlement. But the project was no sooner broached than it had to encounter the most determined opposition from the public, to most of whom it seemed no doubt utterly chimerical and absurd. The “Gentleman’s Magazine,” the great organ of literature and science at that time, led the van. At first the editors affected to treat the scheme as an extravagant hoax; afterwards they tell their readers “with what alarm they read in the public prints that so wild a project was actually to be carried into execution.” However, “it could never be countenanced by any professional man after a moment’s reflection. Not only the distance, but the utter impossibility of carry[Pg 16]ing a number of male and female felons across the line, without the ravages of putrid disorders sweeping them off by the score, must for ever render such a plan abortive. The rains, the heats, tempests, tornados, and mountainous seas to be encountered, were enough to deter the most reckless of human life from such a hazardous enterprise. If any such desperadoes could be found, they ventured to foretell that their fate would for ever be a warning to others not to repeat the attempt.” The subject was not suffered to rest; a few months afterwards Sylvanus Urban—for under this name the editors of that able journal have for upwards of a century disguised themselves—returned to the charge. “The ostensible design of the projector,” they say, “to prepare a settlement for the reception of felons on the most barren, least inhabited, and worst cultivated country in the southern hemisphere, was beyond belief.” Moreover, “Botany Bay was beyond the reach of succour or assistance from any European settlement.”

Then again the lavish expense of such an establishment was another serious objection. “It was said that it was to consist of a post-captain, a governor, with a salary of 500l. a-year, a master, and commander. A lieutenant-governor, with 300l. a-year, four captains, twelve subalterns, twelve sergeants, and one hundred and sixty rank and file from the marines; a surgeon, chaplain, and quartermaster. The whole equipment, army, navy, and felons, were to be supplied with two years’ provisions, and all sorts of implements for the culture of the earth, and hunting and fishing. Some slight buildings were to be run up until a proper fort and a town could be erected. If such a report could be true, the expense would equal that of[Pg 17] an expedition to the South Seas against an enemy.” If such extravagance were repeated with every freight of felons, “it would furthermore extinguish all hope of paying off the national debt.”

We leave the reader to smile while he muses on the short-sightedness even of wise men, and the strange fluctuations of human opinion. The government persevered in spite of these prophetic warnings; which probably represented the general state of feeling on the subject among educated men in England, with whom, in those days, Sylvanus was no mean authority. Accordingly, in March 1787, eleven sail, consisting of the frigate Sirius, an armed tender, three store-ships, and six transports, assembled at Portsmouth, having on board five hundred and sixty-five male, and one hundred and ninety-two female convicts, under Captain Arthur Phillip, an experienced officer, who was appointed governor of the new colony. The fleet set sail from the Mother Bank, on the 13th of May, 1787, and after a tedious voyage of eight months, the whole convoy arrived safely in Botany Bay in the middle of January, 1788. But Captain Cook’s description of the country surrounding the Bay was found far too flattering—the harbour being exposed to tempestuous gales, which often rolled a heavy sea upon the beach, while the land was deformed with swamps and barren sand banks. On pressing forward to a neighbouring creek, marked by Captain Cook as a mere boat harbour, Governor Phillip had the satisfaction to find one of the finest havens in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line might ride in safety. It was then called Port Jackson. The different coves of this harbour were examined with all possible expedition, and the preference was given to one which[Pg 18] had the finest spring of water, and in which ships might anchor so close to the shore that, at a very small expense, quays could be constructed where the largest vessels might unload. This cove is about half a mile in length, and about a quarter of a mile across at the entrance. In honour of Lord Sydney, the governor distinguished it by the name of Sydney Cove. On the twenty-sixth of February, 1788, the British colours were displayed on these shores; the plan of an encampment, the first rude outline of the metropolitan city of Sydney, was formed. The spot chosen was at the head of the cove, near a stream of fresh water, which stole silently along by a thick wood now the site of crowded streets, the stillness of which for the first time since the creation was then broken by the rude sound of the labourer’s axe, and the hum of busy men. The anniversary of this great event has for some years been a festival in New South Wales. Governor Phillip landed with a thousand and thirty souls; his live stock consisted of six head of horned cattle and seven horses. The town and district of Sydney has now a population of three hundred thousand souls; every year the increase is enormous; and the ratio of each year’s increase exceeds the last.

These figures, however, make but a feeble impression upon us at a distance. The colonists feel a warmth of enthusiasm such as only the sight of the marvellous contrast can create. We copy the following extract from the Sydney Herald on one of these anniversaries—“the nativity of the city of Sydney and of the colony of New South Wales.”

“When we compare the town and the country as they are now with what they were then, we may well be proud of British enterprise, and of the local re[Pg 19]sources which it has so rapidly and triumphantly developed. How forcibly are we reminded of the miraculous transformation foretold by the inspired son of Amoz—‘The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.’ Let the imagination attempt this day to realize the enchanting contrast. As we look upon the noble ships riding in our harbour, and the steamers, yachts, wherries, and boats innumerable, gliding to and fro amid the joyous excitements of the regatta, let us picture the three humble boats which, this day fifty-seven years,[A] were slowly creeping up the unknown waters of Port Jackson, in quest of a sure resting-place for our first predecessors. As we cast our eye over the elegant buildings which now skirt our shores on either side, and over the crowds of well-dressed men, women and children, who are keeping holiday on this our national festival, let us think of the dense woods which then frowned on Governor Phillip, of the profound silence that reigned around him, of the awful sense of solitude with which he and his little band must have been impressed, and of the exultation they would have felt could they have foreseen that, within so brief a term, the wilderness they were approaching would have become ‘replenished’ with a teeming population, and have been ‘subdued’ to the beauty and affluence of civilized life.”

But the dark side of this romantic picture must not be withheld. The infant colony was chiefly composed of the worst class of felons; they were the days of barbarous justice even in England, and it would often be difficult to say why some convicts were sentenced to transportation, while others for lighter causes were [Pg 20]punished with death. There was, at that time, a fearful indifference to human life in our penal code. Punishment was its sole object; amendment was seldom if ever contemplated. Amongst the convicts there was every shade of crime, but scarcely any corresponding gradation of punishment. The truth is, true religion was at its lowest ebb, and pure philanthropy, in consequence, all but unknown; a formal, heartless religion prevailed; and, as one of its fruits, a stern and iron code of law. The convict-ship, which has now become a reformatory school, was rivalled in its horrors only by the slave-ship; indeed if the physical suffering was greater in the latter, in moral torture and mental defilement the hold of the convict-ship had, beyond all doubt, the bad pre-eminence.

The prisoners consisted of the most abandoned persons of all nations; British, Dutch, and Portuguese sailors, the polite swindler, and the audacious highwayman, with their female accomplices. They were shipped off in chains; during the passage outward a detachment of soldiers was constantly on guard; and the voyage was seldom accomplished without bloodshed. The secret plots, in which the prisoners were continually engaged, broke out into open mutiny whenever circumstances offered a chance of success; for this purpose a storm, a leak, or a feigned sickness, was readily taken advantage of. When signs of such disturbances showed themselves, the ringleaders were seized and tried in a summary way by court martial; but the sailors often refused to enforce the sentence, so that it became necessary to compel obedience with loaded muskets.

The hold of a convict-ship presented a melancholy picture of human depravity. In the course of the[Pg 21] voyage most of the felons survived the sense of shame: the sounds of ribaldry and boisterous mirth, mingled with catches from the popular songs of the day, issued unceasingly from the prisoners’ deck; this uproar was ever and anon increased by more riotous disturbances, blows and bloodshed followed; and occasionally the monotony of the voyage was broken by mock trials among the prisoners, to show that even in the most profligate and abandoned the principle of justice was not altogether destroyed. When a prisoner committed an offence against his fellows, a judge was appointed, advocates were assigned to the prosecutor and the accused, a jury was sworn to try according to the evidence, witnesses were examined, and the prisoner, being found guilty, was sentenced to an immediate and brutal punishment.

From such elements the society of New South Wales was formed. Most of the convicts, after a short servitude, obtained tickets-of-leave, and settled upon the parcels of land allotted to them by government; and by the improvement of such opportunities they easily drew a subsistence from the soil; others devoted themselves to the care of cattle; while many more, as the colony increased, betook themselves to trade, by which means large fortunes were frequently acquired. Many of the convicts in the course of a few years contrived to amass great wealth, which was expended in the extension, or improvement of their property. The results of such industry were to be seen in the cleared inclosures, the neat orchard, and the trim garden that here and there surrounded a well-built brick-house. Even here honest labour seems to have been crowned with success.

Free settlers were at present few in number, and the[Pg 22] convict on his plot of land had many advantages over them. From acquaintance with the climate and the modes of cultivation best suited to the soil, as well as the easiest method of carrying on agricultural operations, he had learned to avoid many fruitless experiments. He understood the habits and character of the servants who assisted him, for the labourers were all of them felons; and he himself had probably shared the same cell, and worked in the same gang. He understood their principles of action; and they were infected with his prejudices. They lived together, ate at the same board and slept under the same roof. Thus a good understanding was maintained between them by his connivance with their follies or their vices. The men themselves always preferred a master who had been a prisoner to a free settler of stricter virtue, and a disposition less akin to their own; and for such an one they would make extraordinary exertions, of great importance at seed time and harvest, which a better master could not obtain at any cost.

A brotherhood and close fellowship, the fruit of old associations, sprang up among the convict population. Many considered themselves as martyrs to the vengeance rather than the justice of the law; others, transported for political offences, regarded themselves in the light of patriots. In short a unity of interest cemented them; and each newly arrived convict ship was heartily welcomed. When it anchored in the harbour boats swarmed around it, the decks were crowded, the new comers were loaded with presents of fresh bread and other luxuries. They were pressed with eager inquiries after absent friends, the comrades they had left in English jails. They were greeted with the heartiness of old companions, and without[Pg 23] reluctance exchanged the close confinement of the convict ship for the fellowship of their old acquaintance on shore. The colony at this time abounded with Irish who had shared in the rebellion of 1798, and who generally brought with them a fair knowledge of agriculture without very industrious habits. They attached little turpitude to their offences, considering themselves rather as sacrificed to the cause of freedom. Indeed it is well ascertained that some of them had been banished without even the formality of a trial, some without any specific sentence as to the term of their transportation, victims to the angry spirit of the times. They are described as, for the most part, conducting themselves with great propriety in the hope of one day regaining their freedom, and being restored to their long absent friends. Such men as these proved excellent colonists, and successful settlers.

The criminal history of the colony in its first years discloses a dreadful list of both crimes and punishments. Small bodies of the convicts occasionally broke loose, fled to the woods, and there, setting all restraints at defiance, became reckless and ferocious. The dread of punishment did not restrain them from robbery, murder, and the most appalling crimes. The risks were well calculated, for the chances of conviction were few, and punishment was uncertain. If they were detected, a convict, being dead in law, could not be summoned as a witness. The jury would probably be composed of men who had been sharers in crimes of equal magnitude, perhaps old associates. The prisoners would be defended by convict attorneys, a nefarious class with which the colonial courts were filled. Ineffectual attempts were made to exclude these men, but the influence they had been suffered[Pg 24] already to attain, made this impracticable. Amongst the most notorious of them was one who obtained a large practice by dint of his ingenuity, and managed the most important business in the colony. He had been some years previously sentenced to transportation for life, for forging a will. He had resorted to the ingenious device of putting a fly into the mouth of a dead man, and then guiding his hand to trace his signature to the writing; and, upon the trial, he swore, with audacious assurance, that he saw the testator sign the will while life was in him. In passing sentence, the late Lord Ellenborough took the opportunity of congratulating the profession on getting rid of such a pest.

The records of the court are scarcely less painful than the history of the criminals themselves. The punishments adjudged were frightfully severe. If they did not reclaim the prisoner, they must have hardened him beyond recovery, if indeed they did not in many instances torture him to death. The men thus punished were already convicts it is true, and more than usual severity may have been justified. But no penal code emanating from a people professing the name of Christ may inflict savage and barbarous penalties. They recoil with disgrace upon the legislation which exacts them, and a whole nation is degraded in the person of its own malefactors; while God’s displeasure is evident both in the increase and audacity of criminals on the one hand, and in the loss of humane and virtuous sentiments throughout the community on the other. We have taken three cases as a specimen of the method in which justice was dealt out to criminals in the early days of the colony in New South Wales.

[Pg 25]“John Allen, stealing in dwelling-house to the value of forty shillings. Publicly whipped, hundred lashes, confined in solitary cell at Paramatta on bread and water for six months, and hard labour at Newcastle three years.”

“Michael Hoare and James Gilchrist, feloniously and burglariously breaking and entering Schoolhouse at Kissing Point, and stealing from there divers articles of property. Twelve months solitary confinement at Paramatta, two years hard labour in jail gang, then transported for life to Newcastle.”

“John Hale, Robert Holton, and Peter Allen, killing a bullock with intent to steal the carcase. Solitary confinement on bread and water for three years in Paramatta jail, afterwards two years labour in jail gang there, and afterwards transportation for life to Newcastle.”[B]

Such was the sphere of Mr. Marsden’s labours, such the difficulties with which he had to contend, and the system, too, which, as a magistrate, he was even called upon to administer. A more hopeless task could scarcely have been undertaken; but he set himself vigorously to work, looking to the Strong One for strength, and the fruit was “seen after many days.”

FOOTNOTES:

[A] This was published in 1845.

[B] See Wentworth’s Colony of New South Wales, second edition, 1820.

CHAPTER III.

The retirement of the senior chaplain left Mr. Marsden in sole charge of the spiritual concerns of the infant colony. He had now to officiate at the three settlements of Sydney, Paramatta, and Hawkesbury without assistance. The nature of the population, consisting as it did of a mass of criminals, rendered his ministerial labours peculiarly distressing. The state of morals was utterly depraved; oaths and ribaldry, and audacious lying were universal; marriage, and the sacred ties of domestic life, were almost unknown, and those who, from their station, should have set an example to the convicts and settlers, encouraged sin in others by the effrontery of their own transgressions. Under discouragement such as would have subdued the spirit of most men, did he, for the long period of fourteen years, continue at his post; cheered it is true with occasional gleams of success, but upon the whole rather a witness against abounding vice, than, at present, a successful evangelist. Nor were domestic trials wanting to complete that process of salutary discipline by which “the great Shepherd of the sheep” was preparing his servant for other and wider scenes of labour, and for triumphs greater than the church in these later days had known. His firstborn son, a lovely and promising child scarcely two[Pg 29] years old, was thrown from its mother’s arms by a sudden jerk of the gig in which they were seated, and killed upon the spot. It would be impossible to describe the agonized feelings of the mother under such a bereavement, nor were the sorrows of the father less profound. He received the tidings, together with the body of his lifeless boy, we are told, with “calm, and even dignified submission,” for “he was a man who said little though he felt much.” A second stroke, still more painful, was to follow. Mrs. Marsden, determined not to hazard the safety of another child, left her babe at home in charge of a domestic while she drove out. But her very precaution was the occasion of his death: the little creature strayed into the kitchen unobserved, fell backwards into a pan of boiling water, and its death followed soon after. Thus early in his ministerial career the iron entered his own soul, and taught him that sympathy for the wounded spirit which marked his character through life.

But from these scenes of private suffering we must turn aside. The public life and ministerial labours of Mr. Marsden require our attention; and as we enter upon the review of them we must notice two circumstances which from the very outset of his career exposed him to frequent suspicion and obloquy, both in the colony and at home, and formed in fact the chief materials, so to speak, out of which his opponents wove the calumnies with which they harassed the greater portion of his life.

He had scarcely arrived at his post when he was appointed a colonial magistrate. Under ordinary circumstances, we should condemn in the strongest manner the union of functions so obviously incom[Pg 30]patible as those of the Christian minister and the civil judge. To use the words of a great living authority on judicial questions, a late lord chancellor,[C] “it is the union of two noble offices to the detriment of both.” Yet it seems in the case before us, that the office was forced upon Mr. Marsden, not as a complimentary distinction, but as one of the stern duties of his position as a colonial chaplain, who was bound to maintain the authority of the law amidst a population of lawless and dangerous men. Port Jackson, or Botany Bay as it was generally called, was then and long afterwards merely a penal settlement. The governor was absolute, and the discipline he enforced was, perhaps of necessity, harsh and rigid. Resistance to the law and its administrators was of daily occurrence; life and property were always insecure, and even armed rebellion sometimes broke out. If the government thought it necessary, for the safety of this extraordinary community, to select a minister of the gospel to fill the office of a magistrate, he had no alternative but to submit, or else to resign his chaplaincy and return home. Mr. Marsden chose to remain; moved by the hope of being able to infuse something of the spirit of the gospel into the administration of justice, and to introduce far higher principles than those which he saw prevailing amongst the magistrates themselves. In both of these objects he succeeded to an eminent extent, though not till after the lapse of years, and a remonstrance carried by himself in person to the government at home. Justice was dealt even to the greatest criminals more fairly, and the bench of magistrates grew at length ashamed, in the presence of the chaplain of Paramatta, of its own [Pg 31]hitherto unabashed licentiousness. But the cost was great. He was involved in secular business from day to day, and that often of the most painful kind. His equal-handed justice made him a host of personal enemies in those whose vices he punished; and, still more, in those whose corrupt and partial administration of the law was rebuked by the example of his integrity. In the share he was obliged to take in the civil affairs of the colony differences of opinion would naturally arise, and angry feelings would, as usual follow. Of course he was not free from human infirmity, his own temper was sometimes disturbed. Thus for years, especially during his early residence in New South Wales, he was in frequent collision with the magistrates, and occasionally even with the governor. Again and again he would have resigned his commission, but was not allowed to do so; meanwhile his mind was often distracted and his character maligned. To these trials we shall be obliged to refer as we trace his steps through life; but we mean to do so as seldom as we can, for the subject is painful, and, since few men can ever be placed in his circumstances, to most of us unprofitable.

Another point on which Mr. Marsden’s conduct has been severely, and yet most unjustly blamed, is that he was engaged in the cultivation of a considerable tract of land. Avarice and secularity were roundly charged upon him in consequence; for it was his painful lot through life to be incessantly accused not only of failings of which he was quite guiltless, but of those which were the most opposite to his real character. A more purely disinterested and unselfish man perhaps never lived. One who under the constant disturbance of every kind of business and[Pg 32] employment, still “walked” more “humbly with his God,” is not often to be found. Yet the cry once raised against him was never hushed; until at length, having rung in his ears through life, as a warning to him, no doubt, even in his brightest moments of success, that he should “cease from man,” it was suddenly put to shame at last and buried with him in his grave.

The circumstances were these: When he arrived in the colony, in the beginning of 1794, it was yet but six years old. The cultivation of land had scarcely begun; it was therefore dependent on supplies of food from home, and was often reduced to the brink of famine. One cask of meat was all that the king’s stores contained when Mr. Marsden first landed on those shores from which the produce of the most magnificent flocks and herds the world has ever pastured was afterwards to be shipped. Governor Phillip, as we have seen, had laid the foundation of the colony amid scenes of difficulty and trial which it is fearful to contemplate. In September, 1795, Captain Hunter arrived, and following in the steps of his predecessor, exerted himself in clearing land and bringing it under cultivation. To effect this he made a grant to every officer, civil and military, of one hundred acres, and allowed each thirteen convicts as servants to assist in bringing it into order. Mr. Marsden availed himself of the grant, and his farm soon exhibited those marks of superior management which might have been looked for by all who were acquainted with the energy of his character and his love of rural pursuits. Where land was to be had on such easy terms, it was not to be desired or expected that he should be limited to the original grant. He soon possessed an estate of several hun[Pg 33]dred acres—the model farm of New South Wales;—and, let it not be forgotten, the source from whence those supplies were drawn which fed the infant missions of the Southern Seas, while at the same time they helped their generous owner to support many a benevolent institution in his own parish and neighbourhood. Years afterwards he was induced to print a pamphlet in justification of his conduct in this as well as other particulars on which it was assailed; and as we copy an extract from it, our feeling is one of shame and sorrow that it should ever have been required. He says, “I did not consider myself in the same situation, in a temporal point of view, in this colony as a clergyman in England. My situation at that period would bear no such comparison. A clergyman in England lives in the very bosom of his friends; his comforts and conveniences are all within his reach, and he has nothing to do but to feed his flock. On the contrary, I entered a country which was in a state of nature, and was obliged to plant and sow or starve. It was not from inclination that my colleague and I took the axe, the spade, and the hoe: we could not, from our situation, help ourselves by any other means, and we thought it no disgrace to labour. St. Paul’s own hands ministered to his necessities in a cultivated nation, and our hands ministered to our wants in an uncultivated one. If this be cast upon me as a shame and a reproach, I cheerfully bear it, for the remembrance never gives me any cause of reproach or remorse.” Monsieur Perron, a commander sent out by the French government to search for the unfortunate La Perouse (who had recently perished in an exploratory voyage to the islands of the South Pacific), visited Mr. Marsden’s farm in 1802,[Pg 34] and records, with the generous admiration his countrymen have never withheld from English enterprise and industry, his astonishment and delight. “No longer,” he exclaims, “than eight years ago, the whole of this spot was covered with immense and useless forests; what pains, what exertions must have been employed! These roads, these pastures, these fields, these harvests, these orchards, these flocks, the work of eight years!” And his admiration of the scene was not greater than his reverence for its owner, “who,” he adds, “while he thus laboured in his various important avocations was not unmindful of the interests of others. He generously interfered in behalf of the poorer settlers in their distresses, established schools for their children, and often relieved their necessities; and to the unhappy culprits, whom the justice of their offended country had banished from their native soil, he administered alternately exhortation and comfort.”

Indeed, it would be no easy task to enumerate all the schemes of social, moral, and spiritual enterprise upon which Mr. Marsden was now employed, and into all of which he appears to have thrown a force and energy which is generally reserved, even by the zealous philanthropist, for some one favoured project. Thus the state of the female convicts, at a very early period, especially attracted his attention. Their forlorn condition, their frightful immoralities—the almost necessary consequence of the gross neglect which exposed them to temptation, or rather thrust them into sin—pressed heavily upon him, and formed the subject of many solemn remonstrances, first to the authorities abroad, and when these were unheeded, to the government at home. The wrongs of the aborigines, their[Pg 35] heathenism, and their savage state, with all its attendant miseries and hopeless prospects in eternity, sank into his heart; and under his care a school arose at Paramatta for their children. The scheme, as we shall explain hereafter, was not successful; but at least it will be admitted “he did well that it was in” his “heart.” He was often consulted by the successive governors on questions of difficulty and importance, and gave his advice with respect, but at the same time with honest courage. Amusing anecdotes are told of some of their interviews. A misunderstanding had occurred between Governor King and himself, which did not, however, prevent the governor from asking his advice. Mr. Marsden was allowed to make his own terms, which were that he should consider Governor King as a private individual, and as such address him. Much to his credit, the governor consented. Mr. Marsden then locked the door, and in plain and forcible terms explained to Captain King the faults, as he conceived, of Governor King’s administration. They separated on the most friendly terms; and if we admire the courage of the chaplain, we must not overlook the self-command and forbearance of the governor. With a dash of eccentricity the affair was honourable to both parties.

Another instance of Mr. Marsden’s ready tact and self-possession may be mentioned. Governor King, who possessed, by virtue of his office, the most absolute power, was not only eccentric but somewhat choleric. On one occasion, when Mr. Marsden was present, a violent dispute arose between the governor and the commissary-general. Mr. Marsden not being at liberty to leave the room, retired to a window, determined not to be a witness of the coming storm. The[Pg 36] governor, in his heat, pushed or collared the commissary, who in return, pushed or struck the governor. His excellency, indignant at the insult, called to the chaplain, “Do you see that, sir!” “Indeed, sir,” replied Mr. M., “I see nothing,”—dwelling with jocular emphasis on the word see. Thus good humour was immediately restored, and the grave and even treasonable offence of striking the representative of the sovereign was forgotten. These trifling circumstances are worth relating, not only in illustration of Mr. Marsden’s character, but of the history of the earlier days of the colony.

But graver duties had already devolved upon him. Amongst the unpublished manuscripts of the London Missionary Society, there is one document of singular interest, in connexion with the name of Samuel Marsden. It is a memorandum of seventeen folio pages on the state and prospects of their missions to Tahiti and the islands in the South Seas, dated “Paramatta, 30th January, 1801,” and “read before the committee” in London—such was the slow, uncertain communication fifty years ago with a colony now brought within sixty days’ sail of England—“on the 19th of April, 1802.” Foremost in the literature of another generation will stand those treasures which slumber, for the most part unvalued and undisturbed, on the shelves of our missionary houses. For men will surely one day inquire, with an interest similar to that with which we read of the conversion of Britain in the dim light of Ingulphus and the Saxon Chronicle, or the venerable Bede, how distant islands were first evangelized, and through what sorrows, errors, and reverses, the first missionary fought his way to victory in continents and islands of the southern hemisphere.[Pg 37] And of these, the document which now lies before us will be esteemed as inferior to none in calm and practical wisdom, in piety, or in ardent zeal tempered with discretion.

The circumstances which called it forth were these. The Tahitian mission, the first great effort of the London Missionary Society, and indeed the first Protestant mission, with perhaps one exception,[D] to savage tribes, had hitherto disappointed the sanguine expectations of its promoters. We trust we shall not be thought to make a display of that cheap wisdom which consists in blaming the failures of which the causes were not seen until the catastrophe had occurred, if we say that, great and truly magnificent as the project was, it carried within itself the elements of its own humiliation. The faith and zeal of its founders were beyond all human praise; but in the wisdom which results from experience, they were of course deficient. “To attempt great things, and to expect great things,” was their motto; but they did not appreciate the difficulties of the enterprise; nor did they duly estimate the depth of the depravity of the savage heart and mind. Dr. Haweis, a London clergyman of great piety and note in those days, preached before the Society when the first missionary ship, the Duff, was about to sail. He described to his delighted audience the romantic beauty and grandeur of the islands which lie like emeralds upon the calm bosom of the Southern Ocean, and anticipated their immediate conversion as soon as they should hear the first glad tidings of the gospel. The ship sailed from the [Pg 38]Tower wharf, with flags flying and banners streaming, as if returning from a triumph, amidst the cheers of the spectators. Amongst the crowd there stood a venerable minister of Christ, leaning upon the arm of one who still survives—himself a veteran in the service of his Lord. As they turned slowly away from the exciting scene, the aged minister mournfully exclaimed, “I am afraid it will not succeed: there is too much of man in it.” His words were prophetic; for nearly twenty years no success followed, but one sweeping tide of disappointment and disaster;[E] till, at length, when, humbled and dejected, about the year 1814, the missionaries, as well as the Society at home, in despair had almost resolved to abandon the station, the work of God appeared in the conversion of the king of Tahiti; and with a rapidity to be compared only to the long, cheerless, period in which they had “laboured in vain, and spent their strength for nought,” the missionaries beheld not only Tahiti, but the adjacent islands transformed into Christian lands.

It was in the midst of these disasters that Mr. Marsden was consulted, and wrote the memorandum to which we have referred. If in some places he seems to lay too great stress upon what may appear to the reader prudential considerations of inferior importance, let us remind him that on these very points the missionaries had betrayed their weakness. Their own quarrels and even the gross misconduct of some few amongst them, were not less painful to the church at home than their want of success.

Many will condemn this counsel. Nor do we feel bound to justify it to the letter. A reasonable degree of caution in avoiding danger, and under great emergency in preparing measures for self-defence, may be allowed even to the missionary. Yet experience shows that his safety chiefly lies in cultivating and exhibiting the spirit of Him who “suffered the just for the unjust,” and “when led as a lamb to the slaughter, yet opened not his mouth.”

Various prudential hints follow, on marriage and other delicate subjects. The reader will smile to learn that fifty years ago it was a question at missionary boards whether married men were not dis[Pg 41]qualified for missionary work. It was argued that their wives would be exposed to ill-usage from the natives, and that they themselves would be diverted by the anxieties or the comforts of home from their proper calling. Mr. Marsden combats both of these objections. “It appears to me that a married woman, coming along with her husband in the mission, would have no extraordinary dangers to apprehend from the natives, and would, if a prudent woman, prove the greatest comfort and protection to her husband, sweeten his toils and sustain his burdens.” Beyond this even Mr. Marsden’s views did not yet extend. The time had not yet come when experience should drive the friends of missions, in the failure of many a plausible theory, to fall back simply on the New Testament, not merely for their principles, for this they did, but for the best and safest precedents in missionary work. They forgot how large a share of the honours of the primitive church in its labours for Christ belong to the weaker sex. That a missionary’s wife might be no less, nay in some instances far more, successful than her husband was a thought not yet entertained in missionary counsels. They did not foresee that the instruction of the native woman, and the Christian education of the heathen child, would soon become the special province of the missionary’s wife. Mrs. Wilson had not yet arisen “a mother in Israel,” nor Mrs. Judson, nor others whose fame is only less in missionary annals, because their work has been carried on in places less interesting, or at least less open to the world’s gaze, than Calcutta and Burmah. Nor can we give more than a hesitating and partial consent to some of the following observations:

True, they were not prepared. But here we are at variance alike with Dr. Haweis on the one hand, and Mr. Marsden on the other. “The preparation of the heart,” the wise man tells us, “is from the Lord;” and this is a kind of preparation which civilization will not supply. It is easy, as we have said, to find fault with men who, whatever their mistakes, deserve the veneration of the church. Let it be borne in mind that of savage life, its horrors, its ferocity, its cannibalism, England then knew but little. Had they been favoured with the experience we now possess, they would have felt more deeply how impotent a weapon is civilization to hew down the strongholds of Satan in a heathen land; their failures perhaps would have been fewer, and their successes more speedy if not more complete. A true Christian missionary, amongst savages, must be of necessity a civilizer. His own pure and quiet homestead, adorned with the arts[Pg 43] of life, his cultivated garden, his neatly fenced paddock, the corn-field which soon follows, and then the mill—all these, and, we may say, all the habits and circumstances of his life, directly tend to civilize; and thus the process of outward reformation goes on amongst the surrounding tribes, while the spiritual seed is being sown in the native heart. And it will sometimes happen that native tribes are civilized before they are converted, simply because the carnal mind rejects the spiritual lesson, while selfishness, or the mere love of imitation, (equally powerful in the breast of children and of savages) induces them readily to adopt European habits. But after all we question whether the native heathen thus outwardly changed is one whit more likely to embrace the gospel than before.

There is, however, much truth in the following remarks; they show a thoughtful mind, and they prove too, if we are not mistaken, that the gospel of Jesus Christ has lost nothing of its pristine force after the lapse of eighteen centuries; for the Christian missions of our own day have triumphed amidst some difficulties against which even the apostles had not to contend. “The conduct of the apostles cannot exactly apply as a guide to the missionaries in these islands; St. Paul was sent to preach a crucified Jesus, not to savage, but to civilized heathens; to Greece and Rome, to nations noted for their politeness of manners and human learning, the inhabitants both of Greece and Rome had obtained the highest degree of civilization, they were”—intellectually, of course, Mr. Marsden must be understood to mean—“prepared for the reception of the gospel; their philosophers had for ages been making diligent inquiries after the true God; they had erected altars and the most magnificent[Pg 44] temples for the worship of some superior being whom they knew not. This is not the case with the natives of these islands.... It is unnecessary for me to contrast the situations of the primitive apostles and the present missionaries, and to point out their vast difference. Sacred and profane history will furnish the missionaries with this information, provided they will study their records.”

Mr. Marsden continued to be through life the confidential adviser of the London Missionary Society, and the warm friend and, as they passed to and fro upon their voyages, the kind host of their missionaries.

His character was now established. The colony was rapidly increasing in importance; and yet no change had been made in its government, which was still committed to the absolute direction of a single mind, that of the colonial governor. He too was a military officer, and not always one of high position and large capacity, or even of the purest morals; for by such men the governorship of his Majesty’s territory in New South Wales would have then been disdained. Mr. Marsden had done much, but much more remained to be accomplished. There were mischiefs that lay far beyond his reach, and spurned control. On the first establishment of the colony all the military officers were forbidden to take their wives with them—the governor and chaplains were the only exceptions—and there is one instance of a lady whose love to her husband led her to steal across the ocean in the disguise of a sailor, who was actually sent home again by Governor Phillip without being permitted to land. Our readers may anticipate the consequences which followed in an almost universal licentiousness. The most abandoned females often appeared fearlessly[Pg 45] before the magistrates, well knowing that they would have impunity even for the greatest crimes; and male offenders used their influence to obtain a judgment in their favour. Expostulation, remonstrance, and entreaty Mr. Marsden had tried in vain. “Of all existing spots in New South Wales the court of judicature at Sydney,” it was publicly affirmed, “was the most iniquitous and abandoned;” and at length a rebellious spirit broke out, and the authority of the governor, even in his military capacity, was at an end. The efforts of the faithful chaplain were now thwarted at the fountain head, and his life was not unfrequently in danger. Mr. Marsden’s sagacity fastened the conviction on his mind that a crisis was at hand, which could only be averted by the interference of the government at home. He therefore asked for, and obtained, permission to revisit England. His fears were just; he had already assisted in quelling one rebellion, and another of a more serious nature broke out soon after he embarked, which drove the governor from the colony, and ended in his recall, and the establishment of a new order of things. The spiritual fruit of Mr. Marsden’s labours had not yet been great, but already the foundations had been laid for extensive usefulness. On the eve of his departure, he was presented with a gratifying address, bearing the signatures of three hundred and two persons, “the holders of landed estates, public offices, and other principal inhabitants of the large and extensive settlements of Hawkesbury, Nepean, and Portland-Head, and adjacent parts of New South Wales,” conveying “their grateful thanks for his pious, humane, and exemplary conduct throughout this whole colony, in the various and arduous situations held by him as a[Pg 46] minister of the gospel, superintendent magistrate, inspector of public, orphan, and charity schools, and in other offices.” They thank him too for “his attention and cares in the improvement of stock, agriculture, and in all other beneficial and useful arts, for the general good of the colony, and for his unremitting exertions for its prosperity,” and conclude thus:—“Your sanctity, philanthropy, and disinterestedness of character, will ever remain an example to future ministers; and that God, whom we serve, may pour down his blessings upon you and yours to the latest posterity, is the sincere prayer of those who sign this address.”

FOOTNOTES:

[C] Lord Brougham.

[D] That of the Moravians to Labrador. The Wesleyans had a mission in the West Indies, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had long had the care of the Danish missions at Malabar. But none of these were missions, in the strict sense, among savages.

[E] This anecdote we relate on the authority of the younger minister, from whom we received it. The elder one was the Rev. Samuel Bradburn, the friend and associate of Wesley.—Editor.

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Marsden returned home in His Majesty’s ship Buffalo, after an absence of fourteen years. On the voyage he had one of those hair-breadth deliverances in which devout Christians recognise the hand of God. The Buffalo was leaky when she sailed, and a heavy gale threatening, it was proposed that the passengers should quit the ship and take refuge in a stauncher vessel which formed one of the fleet. Mr. Marsden objected, Mrs. Marsden being unwilling to leave Mrs. King, the wife of Governor King, who was returning in the same vessel, and who was at the time an invalid. In the night, the expected storm came on. In the morning, the eyes of all on board the crazy Buffalo were strained in vain to discover their companion. She was never heard of more, and no doubt had foundered in the hurricane.

On his arrival in London he waited on the under secretary of state to report his return, and learned from him that his worst fears had been realized, and that the colony was already in a state of open insurrection, headed by the “New South Wales Corps,” who were leagued with several of the wealthier traders. The insurrection was, however, suppressed, and Lieut.-colonel Macquarie was sent out with his regiment to assume the government. Lord Castlereagh, the colonial minister, was quick to perceive the value of such an adviser on the affairs of Australia as Mr.[Pg 48] Marsden, and encouraged him to lay before the government a full statement of his views. Seldom has it happened to a private individual to be charged with weightier or more various affairs, never perhaps with schemes involving more magnificent results. As the obscure chaplain from Botany Bay paced the Strand, from the colonial office at Whitehall to the chambers in the city where a few pious men were laying plans for Christian missions in the southern hemisphere, he was in fact charged with projects upon which not only the civilization, but the eternal welfare, of future nations were suspended. Nor was he unconscious of the greatness of the task. With a total absence of romance or enthusiasm—for his mind was wanting in the imaginative faculty on which enthusiasm feeds—he was yet fully alive to the possible consequences of his visit to his native shores, and intensely interested in his work. He aimed at nothing less than to see Australia a great country; and, with a yet firmer faith, he expected the conversion of the cannibal tribes of New Zealand and the Society Islands; and this at a time when even statesmen had only learned to think of New South Wales as a national prison, and when the conversion of New Zealanders was regarded as a hopeless task, even by the majority of Christian men, and treated by the world with indifference or scorn. In fact, during this short visit he may be said to have planned, perhaps unconsciously, the labours of his whole life, and to have laid the foundation for all the good of which he was to be the instrument.

Let us first turn to the efforts he made for the settlements in New South Wales. The improvement of the convict population was his primary object, and his more immediate duty. He had observed that by far[Pg 49] the greater number of reformed criminals consisted of those who had intermarried, or whose wives had been able to purchase their passage over, and he suggested that those of the convicts’ wives who chose to do so should be permitted to accompany their husbands even at the public expense. This was refused, and it was almost the only point upon which his representations failed; but, as a compromise, the wives of the officers and soldiers were permitted to accompany their husbands, and not less than three hundred immediately went with a single regiment. To encourage honesty and industry he recommended not only remission of the sentence to the well conducted convict, but a grant of land to a certain extent; with which the government complied. But he had no weak and foolish sympathy with crime, and long after the period at which we are now writing, he continued to incur the hatred of a certain class by protesting, as he never ceased to do, against the monstrous impropriety of placing men, however wealthy, who had themselves been convicts, on the magisterial bench. Amongst the convicts he had observed that the greater number were acquainted with some branch of mechanics or manufactures; at present, they were unemployed, or occupied in labour for which they were unfit, and which was therefore irksome to themselves and of no advantage to the colony. He therefore suggested that one or two practical mechanics with small salaries, and one or two general manufacturers, should be sent out to instruct the convicts. But here a serious obstacle presented itself; for this was the age of commercial prohibitions, and it was objected that the manufacturers of the mother country would be injured by such a step. Mr. Marsden met the objec[Pg 50]tion at once. If the government would but accede to the proposal, “he would undertake that the enormous expense at which the country was for clothing the convicts should entirely cease within a certain period.” The wool of the government flocks and the flesh of the wild cattle was already sufficient to provide both food and raiment for the convicts without any expense to the parent state, and all he prayed for was, the opportunity of turning those advantages to the best account. These requests were granted, and on the same night, and at his own cost, he set off by the mail for Warwickshire and Yorkshire in search of four artisans and manufacturers, who were soon upon their way to the scene of their future operations.

The vast importance of Australia as the source on which the English manufacturer must at some future day depend for his supplies of wool, had already occupied his thoughts. He found that within three years his own stock without any care on his part, (for his farm was entirely managed in his absence by a trusty bailiff who had been a convict,) had upon an average been doubled in number and value. With the energy which was natural to him, he carried some of his own wool to Leeds, where he had it manufactured, and he had the satisfaction to learn that it was considered equal, if not superior, to that of Saxony or France. His private letters abound with intimations that ere long Australia must become the great wool-producing country to which the English manufacturer would look. He was introduced to king George the Third, and took the liberty, through Sir Joseph Banks, of praying for a couple of Merino sheep, His Majesty’s property, to improve the breed; and his last letter from England, dated from the Cowes Roads, mentions[Pg 51] their reception on board. We anticipate a little, but must quote the letter, were it only to let the reader see how possible it is to be at once diligent in business and fervent in spirit. “We are this moment getting under weigh, and soon expect to be upon the ocean. I have received a present of five Spanish sheep from the king’s flock, which are all on board; if I am so fortunate as to get them out they will be a most valuable acquisition to the colony. I leave England with much satisfaction, having obtained so fully the object of my mission. It is the good hand of our God that hath done these things for us. I have the prospect of getting another pious minister. I am writing to him on the subject this morning, and I hope he will soon follow us.... On Sunday I stood on the long boat and preached from Ezekiel xviii. 27: ‘When the wicked man turneth away,’ etc. It was a solemn time, many of the convicts were affected. We sang the Hundredth Psalm in the midst of a large fleet. The number of souls on board is more than four hundred. God may be gracious to some of them; though exiled from their country and friends, they may cry unto him in a foreign land, when they come like the Jews of old to hang their harps upon the willows, and weep when they remember Zion, or rather when they remember England.”[F]

The spiritual wants of the colony were not forgotten. He induced the government to send out three additional clergymen and three schoolmasters; and happily the selection was intrusted to his own judgment. A disciple in the school of Venn and Milner, he knew that the ordinances of the church, though administered by a moral and virtuous man, or by a zealous philan[Pg 52]thropist, were not enough. He sought for men who were “renewed in the spirit of their minds;” who uttered no mere words of course when they said at their ordination that they “believed themselves moved thereto by the Holy Ghost.” But here again his task was difficult; clergymen of such a stamp were but few; the spirit of missionary enterprise was almost unfelt; and, to say the truth, there was a missionary field at home, dark and barbarous, and far too wide for the few such labourers of this class whom the Lord had yet “sent forth into his harvest.” Mr. Marsden, however, nothing daunted, went from parish to parish till he met with two admirable men, the Rev. Mr. Cowper and the Rev. Robert Cartwright, who, with their families, accompanied him on his return. His choice was eminently successful. In a short account of Mr. Marsden, published in Australia in 1844, they are spoken of as still living, pious and exemplary clergymen, the fathers of families occupying some of the most important posts in the colony, and, “notwithstanding their advancing years and increasing infirmities,” it is added, “there are few young men in the colony so zealous in preaching the gospel, and in promoting the interests of the church of England.” The schoolmasters too, we believe, did honour to his choice. He had already established two public free-schools for children of both sexes, and he was now able to impart the elements of a pious education, and to train them in habits of industry and virtue. Into all these plans the archbishop of Canterbury cordially entered, and wisely and liberally left it to the able founder to select his agents and associates.

Mr. Marsden likewise urged upon the home administration the necessity of a female Penitentiary; and[Pg 53] obtained a promise that a building should be provided. That he was deeply alive to the importance of an institution of this kind, is manifest in his own description of the state of the female prisoners in the earlier years of the colony, and the deplorable picture he draws of their immorality and wretchedness. “When I returned to England in 1807,” he says, “there were upwards of fourteen hundred women in the colony; more than one thousand were unmarried, and nearly all convicts: many of them were exposed to the most dangerous temptations, privations and sufferings; and no suitable asylum had been provided for the female convicts since the establishment of the colony. On my arrival in London in 1808, I drew up two memorials on their behalf, stating how much they suffered from want of a proper barrack—a building for their reception. One of these memorials I presented to the under secretary of state, and the other to his grace the archbishop of Canterbury. They both expressed their readiness to promote the object.” Years, however, passed before the consent of the colonial governor could be gained; and Mr. Marsden’s benevolent exertions on behalf of these outcast women were for some time frustrated.

The variety of his engagements at this time was equal to their importance. He had returned home charged with an almost infinite multiplicity of business. He was the agent of almost every poor person in the colony who had, or thought he had, important business at home. Penny-postages lay in the same dim future with electric telegraphs and steam-frigates, and he was often burdened with letters from Ireland and other remote parts (so wrote a friend, who published at the time a sketch of his proceedings in the “Eclectic[Pg 54] Review,”) the postage of which, for a single day, has amounted to a guinea; which he cheerfully paid, from the feeling that, although many of these letters were of no use whatever, they were written with a good intention, and under a belief that they were of real value. He had already been saluted, like the Roman generals of old, with the title of common father of his adopted country; and one of his last acts before he quitted England, was to procure, by public contributions and donations of books, “what he called a lending library” (so writes the reviewer,[G] and the expression seems to have amused him from its novelty), “consisting of books on religion, morals, mechanics, agriculture, and general history, to be lent out under his own control and that of his colleagues, to soldiers, free settlers, convicts, and others who had time to read.” In this, too, he succeeded, and took over with him a library of the value of between three and four hundred pounds.

It was during this two-years’-visit to his native land, that Mr. Marsden laid the foundation of the Church of England mission to New Zealand. In its consequences, civil and religious, this has already proved one of the most extraordinary and most successful of those achievements, which are the glory of the churches in these later times. This was the great enterprise of his life: he is known already, and will be remembered while the church on earth endures, as the apostle of New Zealand. Not that we claim for him the exclusive honour of being the only one although we believe he was, in point of time, the first who began, about this period, to project a mission to New Zealand. The Wesleyans were early in the same [Pg 55]field. The Rev. Samuel Leigh, a man whose history and natural character bore a marked resemblance to those of Mr. Marsden, was the pioneer of Methodism, and proved himself a worthy herald of the cross amongst the New Zealanders. A warm friendship existed between the two. On his passage homewards he was a guest at Paramatta; and no tinge of jealousy ever appears to have shaded their intercourse, each rejoicing in the triumphs of the other. Still, Mr. Marsden’s position afforded him peculiar facilities, and having once undertaken it, the superintendence of the New Zealand mission became, without design on his part, the great business of his life.

He had formed a high, we do not think an exaggerated, estimate of the Maori or New Zealand tribes. “They are a noble race,” he writes to his friend John Terry, Esq., of Hull, “vastly superior in understanding to anything you can imagine in a savage nation.” This was before the mission was begun. But he did not speak merely from hearsay: several of their chieftains and enterprising warriors had visited Australia, and they ever found a welcome at the hospitable parsonage at Paramatta. Sometimes, it is true, they were but awkward guests, as the following anecdote will show; which we present to the reader, as it has been kindly furnished to us, in the words of one of Mr. Marsden’s daughters. “My father had sometimes as many as thirty New Zealanders staying at the parsonage. He possessed extraordinary influence over them. On one occasion, a young lad, the nephew of a chief, died, and his uncle immediately made preparations to sacrifice a slave to attend his spirit into the other world. Mr. M. was from home at the moment, and his family were only able to preserve the[Pg 56] life of the young New Zealander by hiding him in one of the rooms. Mr. M. no sooner returned and reasoned with the chief, than he consented to spare his life. No further attempt was made upon it, though the uncle frequently deplored that his nephew had no attendant in the next world, and seemed afraid to return to New Zealand, lest the father of the young man should reproach him for having given up this, to them, important point.”

The Church Missionary Society, which had now been established about seven years, seemed fully disposed to co-operate with him; and at their request he drew up a memorial on the subject of a New Zealand mission, not less important than that we have already mentioned, to the London Missionary Society, on the subject of their Polynesian missions. He still lays great stress upon the necessity of civilization going first as the pioneer of the gospel; “commerce and the arts having a natural tendency to inculcate industrious and moral habits, open a way for the introduction of the gospel, and lay the foundation for its continuance when once received” “... Nothing, in my opinion, can pave the way for the introduction of the gospel but civilization.” ... “The missionaries,” he thought, “might employ a certain portion of their time in manual labour, and that this neither would nor ought to prevent them from constantly endeavouring to instruct the natives in the great doctrines of the gospel.” ... “The arts and religion should go together. I do not mean a native should learn to build a hut or make an axe before he should be told anything of man’s fall and redemption, but that these grand subjects should be introduced at every favourable opportunity, while the natives are learning any of the[Pg 57] simple arts.” He adds that “four qualifications are absolutely necessary for a missionary—piety, industry, prudence, and patience. Without sound piety, nothing can be expected. A man must feel a lively interest in the eternal welfare of the heathen to spur him on to the discharge of his duty.” On the three other qualifications, he enlarges with great wisdom and practical good sense; but the paper has been frequently printed, and we must not transfer it to these pages.

It is no dishonour done to Mr. Marsden if we say that, in mature spiritual wisdom, the venerable men who had founded the Church Missionary Society, and still managed its affairs, were at this time his superiors. Strange indeed it would have been had the case been otherwise. They listened gratefully and with deep respect to the opinion of one so well entitled to advise; they determined on the mission, and they gave a high proof of their confidence, both in the practical wisdom and sterling piety of their friend, in consulting him in the choice of their first agents. But they did not adopt his views with regard to the importance of civilization as the necessary pioneer to the gospel. So long ago as the year 1815, they thought it necessary to publish a statement of the principles upon which their mission was established. “It has been stated,” they say, “that the mission was originally established, and for a long time systematically conducted, on the principle of first civilizing and then christianizing the natives. This is wholly a mistake. The agents employed in establishing the mission were laymen, because clergymen could not be had; and the instructions given to them necessarily correspond with their lay character. The foremost object of the mission has, from the first, been to bring the natives, by the[Pg 58] use of all suitable means, under the saving influences of the grace of the gospel, adding indeed the communication to them of such useful arts and knowledge as might improve their social condition.” The committee’s instructions to their first agents in the mission abundantly sustain these assertions. Mr. William Hall and Mr. John King were the two single-hearted laymen to whom, in the providence of God, the distinguished honour was committed of first making known the gospel in New Zealand. They bore with them these instructions, ere they embarked in the same vessel in which their friend and guide Mr. Marsden himself returned to Australia:—“Ever bear in mind that the only object of the Society, in sending you to New Zealand, is to introduce the knowledge of Christ among the natives, and in order to this, the arts of civilized life.”

Then after directing Messrs. Hall and King “to respect the sabbath day,” to “establish family worship,” at any favourable opportunity to “converse with the natives on the great subject of religion,” and to “instruct their children in the knowledge of Christianity,” the instructions add—“Thus in your religious conduct you must observe the sabbath and keep it holy, attend regularly to family worship, talk to the natives about religion when you walk by the way, when you labour in the field, and on all occasions when you can gain their attention, and lay yourselves out for the education of the young.”

Mr. Thomas Kendall followed; a third layman, for no ordained clergyman of the church of England could yet be found. The same instructions were repeated, and in December, 1815, when the Rev. John[Pg 59] Butler, their first clerical missionary, entered on his labours in New Zealand, he and his companions were exhorted thus—“The committee would observe that they wish, in all the missions of the Society, that the missionaries should give their time as much as possible, and wholly if practicable, first to the acquisition of the native language, and then to the constant and faithful preaching to the natives.” It is subsequently added—“Do not mistake civilization for conversion. Do not imagine when heathens are raised in intellect, in the knowledge of the arts and outward decencies, above their fellow-countrymen, that they are Christians, and therefore rest content as if your proper work were accomplished. Our great aim is far higher; it is to make them children of God and heirs of his glory. Let this be your desire, and prayer, and labour among them. And while you rejoice in communicating every other good, think little or nothing done till you see those who were dead in trespasses and sins, quickened together with Christ.” These passages fully exhibit the views of the committee of this evangelical Society with regard, not only to the New Zealand, but to all their other missions. Nor do they stand alone; every missionary association, taught in many instances by bitter disappointment, has long since discovered that the arts and sciences do not prepare the way of the Lord amongst the heathen abroad; just as they leave unsanctified our civilized heathendom at home.

Before he left England, Mr. Marsden formed or renewed an acquaintance with many great and good men, Mr. Wilberforce, Sir George Grey, the Rev. Daniel Wilson, late Bishop of Calcutta, the Rev. Charles[Pg 60] Simeon, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, Dr. Olinthus Gregory, and others whose names are dear to the church of Christ. But we must particularly notice the friendship which he formed with Dr. Mason Good as productive of the highest blessings to his friend, and of much advantage to himself.

The life of this excellent and accomplished person was published by Dr. Olinthus Gregory, soon after his death, in 1828. He tells us that Dr. Mason Good, when he became acquainted with Mr. Marsden, had long professed Socinian principles, but of these had recently begun to doubt, while he had not yet embraced the gospel of Christ so as to derive either comfort or strength from it. He was anxious and inquiring; his father had been an orthodox dissenting minister, and he himself a constant student and indeed a critical expositor of the Bible. He had published a translation of the book of Job, with notes, and also a translation of Solomon’s Song of Songs. He saw in the latter a sublime and mystic allegory, and in the former a poem, than which nothing can be purer in its morality, nothing sublimer in its philosophy, nothing more majestic in its creed. He had given beautiful translations of many of the Psalms; but with all this he had not yet perceived that Christ is the great theme of the Old Testament, nor did he understand the salvation of which “David in the Psalms, and all the prophets,” as well as Job the patriarch “did speak.” His introduction to Mr. Marsden, in such a state of mind, was surely providential. He saw, and wondered at, his self-denial; he admired the true sublimity of his humble, unassuming, but unquestionable and active piety. “The first time I saw Mr. Marsden,” says his biographer, “was in January, 1808; he had just[Pg 61] returned from Hull, and had travelled nearly the whole journey on the outside of a coach in a heavy fall of snow, being unable to secure an inside place. He seemed scarcely conscious of the inclemency of the season, and declared that he felt no inconvenience from the journey. He had accomplished his object, and that was enough. And what was that object, which could raise him above the exhaustion of fatigue and the sense of severe cold? He had engaged a rope-maker who was willing, at his (Mr. Marsden’s) own expense, to go and teach his art to the New Zealanders.” So writes Dr. Olinthus Gregory.

As a philosopher who loved to trace phenomena to their causes, Dr. Mason Good endeavoured to ascertain the principles from which these unremitting exertions sprang; and, as he often assured his friend, Dr. Gregory, he could trace them only to the elevating influence of Divine grace. He could find no other clue; and he often repeated the wish that his own motives were as pure, and his own conduct as exemplary as those of Mr. Marsden. Thus light broke in, and at length he received the gospel “as a little child,” and began to adorn it by his conduct. For several years he was an efficient member of the committee of the Bible Society, and of that of the Church Missionary Society. To the latter especially he devoted himself with the utmost activity and ardour, and at his death, which occurred in 1827, the committee transmitted to Mrs. Good a resolution expressive of the very high value they set on his services, and of the heavy loss they were conscious they sustained by that event. The resolution was accompanied by a letter of cordial sympathy from the pen of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, the secretary. When dying[Pg 62] he was, heard, without any suggestion or leading remark from those around him, to repeat with quivering lips the text, “All the promises of God in him (Christ Jesus) are Yea, and in him Amen.” “What words,” said he, “for a dying man to rest upon!”[H]

FOOTNOTES:

[F] To Avison Terry, Esq., Hull.

[G] Eclectic Review, vol. v. pp. 988-995.

[H] See Life of Dr. Mason Good, by Dr. Olinthus Gregory.

CHAPTER V.

Mr. Marsden took what proved to be his last leave of his native land in August 1809. Resolute as he was, and nerved for danger, a shade of depression passed across him. “The ship, I understand,” he writes to Mrs. Mason Good, “is nearly ready. This land in which we live is polluted, and cannot, on account of sin, give rest to any of its inhabitants. Those who have (sought) and still do seek their happiness in anything it can give, will meet nothing but disappointment, vexation, and sorrow. If we have only a common share of human happiness, we cannot have or hope for more.” A few weeks afterwards he addresses the same Christian lady thus:—

His prayers and devout aspirations for New Zealand had been heard on high, and “the way of the Lord” was “preparing” in a manner far beyond his expectations, ardent as they seem. The ship Ann, in which he sailed, by order of the government, for New South Wales, carried with her one whom Providence had raised up to act a part, only less important than his own, in the conversion of that benighted land.

[Pg 65]The ship had been some time at sea before Mr. Marsden observed on the forecastle, amongst the common sailors, a man whose darker skin and wretched appearance awakened his sympathy. He was wrapped in an old great coat, very sick and weak, had a violent cough, accompanied with profuse bleeding. He was much dejected, and appeared as though a few days would close his life. This was Duaterra, a New Zealand chieftain, whose story, as related by Mr. Marsden himself, is almost too strange for fiction. And as “this young chief became,” as he tells us, “one of the principal instruments in preparing the way for the introduction of the arts of civilization and the knowledge of Christianity into his native country,” a brief sketch of his marvellous adventures will not be out of place.

When the existence of New Zealand was yet scarcely known to Europeans, it was occasionally visited by a South Sea whaler distressed for provisions, or in want of water. One of these, the Argo, put into the Bay of Islands in 1805, and Duaterra, fired with the spirit of adventure, embarked on board with two of his companions. The Argo remained on the New Zealand coast for above five months, and then sailed for Port Jackson, the modern Sydney of Australia, Duaterra sailing with her. She then went to fish on the coast of New Holland for six months, again returning to Port Jackson. Duaterra had been six months on board, working in general as a common sailor, and passionately fond of this roving life. He then experienced that unkindness and foul play of which the New Zealander has always had sad reason to complain. He was left on shore without a friend and without the slightest remuneration.

[Pg 66]He now shipped himself on board the Albion whaler, Captain Richardson, whose name deserves honourable mention; he behaved very kindly to Duaterra, repaid him for his services in various European articles, and after six months cruising on the fisheries, put him on shore in the Bay of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. Here he remained six months, when the Santa Anna anchored in the bay, on her way to Norfolk Island and other islets of the South Sea in quest of seal skins. The restless Duaterra again embarked; he was put on shore on Norfolk Island at the head of a party of fourteen sailors, provided with a very scanty supply of water, bread, and salt provisions, to kill seals, while the ship sailed, intending to be absent but a short time, to procure potatoes and pork in New Zealand. On her return she was blown off the coast in a storm, and did not make the land for a month. The sealing party were now in the greatest distress, and accustomed as he was to hardship, Duaterra often spoke of the extreme suffering which he and his party had endured, while, for upwards of three months, they existed on a desert island with no other food than seals and sea fowls, and no water except when a shower of rain happened to fall. Three of his companions, two Europeans and one Tahitian, died under these distresses.

[Pg 67]At length the Santa Anna returned, having procured a valuable cargo of seal skins, and prepared to take her departure homewards. Duaterra had now an opportunity of gratifying an ardent desire he had for some time entertained of visiting that remote country from which so many vast ships were sent, and to see with his own eyes the great chief of so wonderful a people. He willingly risked the voyage, as a common sailor, to visit England and see king George. The Santa Anna arrived in the river Thames about July 1809, and Duaterra now requested that the captain would make good his promise, and indulge him with at least a sight of the king. Again he had a sad proof of the perfidiousness of Europeans. Sometimes he was told that no one was allowed to see king George; sometimes that his house could not be found. This distressed him exceedingly; he saw little of London, was ill-used, and seldom permitted to go on shore. In about fifteen days, the vessel had discharged her cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the Ann, which had been taken up by government to convey convicts to New South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Duaterra asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing. He refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson would pay him in two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but even these he never received.

Mr. Marsden was at this time in London, quite ignorant of the fact that the son of a New Zealand chief, in circumstances so pitiable, lay on board a South Sea whaler near London bridge. Their first meeting was on board the Ann, as we have stated, when she had been some days at sea. His sympathies were at once roused, and his indignation too; for it was always ill for the oppressor when he fell within the power of his stern rebuke. “I inquired,” he says, “of the master where he met with him, and also of Duaterra what had brought him to England, and how he came to be so wretched and miserable. He told me that the hardships and wrongs which he had endured on board the Santa Anna were exceedingly great, and that the English sailors had beaten him very much, which was the cause of his spitting blood, and that the master had defrauded him of all his wages, and prevented his seeing the king. I should have been very happy, if there had been time, to call the master of the Santa Anna to account for his conduct, but it was too late. I endeavoured to soothe his afflictions, and assured him that he should be protected from insults, and that his wants should be supplied.”

[Pg 68]By the kindness of those on board, Duaterra recovered, and was ever after truly grateful for the attention shown him. On their arrival at Sydney, Mr. Marsden took him into his house for six months, during which time he applied himself to agriculture; he then wished to return home, and embarked for New Zealand; but further perils and adventures were in prospect, and we shall have occasion to advert to them hereafter. For the present we leave him on his voyage to his island home.

The Ann touched on her passage out at Rio Janeiro, and Mr. Marsden spent a short time on shore, where his active mind, already, one would suppose, burthened with cares and projects, discovered a new field of labour. The ignorance and superstition of a popish city stirred his spirit, like that of Paul at Athens. He wrote home to entreat the Church Missionary Society, if possible, to send them teachers; but this lay not within their province. From a letter of Sir George Grey’s, addressed to himself, it appears that he had interested some members of the English government upon the subject, and that while at Rio he had been active in distributing the Scriptures.

But he was now to resume his labours in Australia, where he arrived in safety, fondly calculating upon a long season of peaceful toil in his heavenly Master’s service. His mind was occupied with various projects, both for the good of the colony and of the heathen round about. His own letters, simply and hastily thrown off in all the confidence of friendship, will show how eagerly he plunged, and with what a total absence of selfish considerations, into the work before him:

Great projects are not to be accomplished without many disappointments. The first attempt is seldom the successful one. In spiritual things, this may be regarded as the established rule, or law, in accordance to which the Head of the church controls while he purifies his servants’ zeal. They are made to feel their weakness. Where they expect honour they meet with opposition, perhaps with scorn. Their favourite plans are those which bring, for a time, the least success and the greatest anxiety. Thus they are taught the great lesson of their own weakness, and the only less important one of the insignificance of others in whom they trusted. And thus, too, in the painful but salutary school of adversity, they learn that the highest wisdom is, after all, simply to accept the cross of Christ, and to cast themselves on the unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit; and, in a word, “to cease from man.”

The new governor, General Macquarie, had arrived out a few months before Mr. Marsden. He was an able commander, and had the good of the colony much at heart; and he had a task of no little difficulty to perform, in reducing what was still a penal colony, just recovering from a state of insurrection, into order and obedience. His powers were great; he considered them absolute. Mr. Marsden, too, was justly tenacious of public morality and virtue, and still more so of the spiritual independence of the ministerial cha[Pg 71]racter. It seems that the rights of the governor on the one side, and those of the ministers of religion on the other, had not been accurately defined by the government at home, and thus a collision between two minds so firm and so resolute as those of the governor and Mr. Marsden, was inevitable. Occasions of difference soon arose; the governor anxious, we doubt not, to raise their character and elevate their position, with a view to the future welfare of the colony, placed several of the convicts on the magisterial bench, treated them with respect, and even invited them to his table. With these men, Mr. Marsden refused, as a magistrate, to act, or to meet them in society on equal terms. Some of them were notoriously persons of a bad and vicious life; while none of them, he thought, could, without gross impropriety, punish others judicially for the infraction of that law which they themselves had broken. He would gladly have resigned his magisterial office, but the governor knew the worth of his services, and refused to accept his resignation, which was repeatedly tendered. The new magistrates were of course offended, and became his bitter foes; and some of them harassed him for twenty years with slanders and libellous insults, until at length an appeal to the laws of his country vindicated his reputation and silenced his opponents. Differences of opinion may exist as to the wisdom of Governor Macquarie’s conduct in these civil affairs, and many will perhaps justify his proceedings; but every right-minded man will condemn without hesitation the attempts which he made to lord it over the consciences of the established clergy and other Christian ministers in the colony, in the discharge of their purely ministerial work. He wished[Pg 72] to dictate even to the pulpit. Mr. Marsden relates that he once sent for him to the Government-house, and commanded him to produce the manuscript of a sermon which he had preached nearly a year before: he did so; when the governor severely commented upon it, and returned it with the remark that one sentence, which it is more than probable he did not understand, was “almost downright blasphemy.” The junior clergy were of course still more exposed to the same despotic interference. The governor wished to prescribe the hymns they should sing, as well as the doctrines they should teach; and he repeatedly insisted on their giving out, during divine service, secular notices of so improper a character, that the military officers in attendance expressed their disgust. Happy it was for the colony of New South Wales that he met with an opponent firm and fearless, and at the same time sound in the faith, such as the senior chaplain. On him menaces and flattery were lost. The governor, at one time, even threatened him with a court-martial; nor was the threat altogether an empty one, for he actually brought one of the junior chaplains, Mr. Vale, before a court-martial, and had him dismissed the colony. These are painful facts, and such as, at this distance of time, we should gladly pass over in silence; but, in that case, what could the reader know of the trials through which Mr. Marsden passed?

Yet amidst all these distractions his letters testify that he possessed his soul in peace, and that “no root of bitterness, troubled” him. He speaks with respect of the governor, gives him credit for good intentions, and acknowledges the many benefits he conferred upon the colony; and when at length he was on the eve of[Pg 73] returning home, Governor Macquarie himself bore testimony to the piety, integrity, and invaluable services of the only man who had dared patiently yet firmly to contend with him during a long course of years.

The records of ministerial life offer little variety, but to pious minds they are not without interest. Mr. Marsden rose early, generally at four o’clock during the summer; and the morning hours were spent in his study. To a Christian minister a few hours of retirement in the morning are indispensable, or the mind is distracted and the day is lost. Very early rising is a question of health and constitution as well as of conscience, and we lay no burden upon those who cannot practise it. To those who can, the habit is invaluable. Three friends of Mr. Marsden present us with different examples in this matter. Simeon’s twenty volumes of Horæ Homilicæ, or outlines of sermons, were all written between five and eight o’clock in the morning. Thomas Scott, the commentator, seldom had more than three hours a-day in his study and those three were early ones. Wilberforce on the other hand laments that he could do nothing till he had had his “full dose of sleep.” Those who cannot rise early may still make the day long by turning to account the fragments of time and vacant half-hours which are so recklessly permitted by most men, especially strong men, to run to waste.

In the early days of the colony, Mr. Marsden used to officiate in the morning at St. Philip’s, Sydney. Roads were bad and conveyances scarce, and he often walked a distance of fifteen miles to Paramatta, where he conducted another service and preached again. His preaching is described as very plain, full of good[Pg 74] sense and manly thought, and treating chiefly of the great foundation truths of the gospel. Man a lost sinner and needing conversion, Christ an Almighty Saviour pardoning sin, the Holy Ghost an all-sufficient sanctifier, guide, and comforter, carrying on the work of grace within the soul. Those who came to hear a great preacher went away disappointed; those who came to pass a listless hour were sometimes grievously disturbed. The authenticity of the following anecdote has been assured to us by Mr. Marsden’s surviving friends.

He was one day walking by the banks of the river, when a convict as he passed plunged into the water. Mr. Marsden threw off his coat, and in an instant plunged in after him and endeavoured to bring the man to land. He contrived however to get Mr. Marsden’s head under the water, and a desperate struggle for life ensued between them; till Mr. Marsden, being the stronger of the two, not only succeeded in getting safe to shore but in dragging the man with him. The poor fellow, struck with remorse, confessed his intention. He had resolved to have his revenge on the senior chaplain, whose offence was that he had preached a sermon which had stung him to the quick; and he believed, as a sinner exasperated by the reflection of his own vices does frequently believe, that the preacher had meant to hold him up to the scorn of the congregation. He knew too that the sight of a drowning fellow-creature would draw out the instant help of one who never knew what fear was in the discharge of duty; and he threw himself into the stream confident of drowning Mr. Marsden, and then of making good his own escape. He became very penitent, was a useful member of society, and[Pg 75] greatly attached to his deliverer, who afterwards took him into his own service, where he remained for some years. We cannot give a more painful illustration of the malignity with which he was pursued, than to state that the current version of this story in the colony was, that the convict had been unjustly punished by Mr. Marsden as a magistrate, and took this method of revenge.

He made the most, too, of his opportunities. At a time when there were very few churches or clergymen, and the settlers were widely scattered over large tracts, he frequently made an itinerating ministerial visit amongst them. He was everywhere received with the greatest cordiality and respect. On arriving at a farm, a man on horseback was immediately dispatched to all the neighbours within ten or twelve miles to collect them for public worship. The settlers gladly availed themselves of these opportunities, and assembled, in numbers varying from sixty to eighty, when Divine service was conducted in a vacant barn or under the shade of a verandah. The next day, he proceeded twenty or twenty-five miles further on in the wilds, and again collected a congregation. These tours would often extend over ten days or a fortnight, and were repeated as his more settled duties permitted. Thus his name became a household word, pronounced with love and gratitude far beyond the limits of his parish, or even of the colony; and probably he found some of his most willing hearers amongst those to whom he thus carried in their solitude the glad tidings of a salvation which when offered to them week by week at home they had neglected or despised.

Yet his duties as principal chaplain were not neglected. From a general government order, dated[Pg 76] September, 1810, it appears that amongst them were those of an overseer, or chief pastor of the church. “The assistant chaplains are directed to consider themselves at all times under the immediate control and superintendence of the principal chaplain, and are to make such occasional reports to him respecting their clerical duties as he may think proper to require or call for.” A high tribute to his worth under the circumstances in which he was placed by his opposition to the governor. The chaplains frequently sought his protection against arbitrary power, and he willingly fought their battles and his own in defence of liberty of conscience and the right of conducting God’s worship undisturbed. His connexion with his clerical brethren seems to have been uniformly happy, and the same remark is true of the missionaries of various denominations, not a few in number, who, during a period of twenty years, were virtually under his control. He had undoubtedly the rare power of governing others in a very high degree, and it was done noiselessly and with a gentle hand; for the men who govern well seldom obtrude their authority in an offensive manner, or worry those they should control with a petty interference. He had the same kind of influence, and probably from the same cause, over the very horses in his carriage. He used, in driving from Sydney to Paramatta, to throw the reins behind the dash-board, take up his book, and leave them to themselves, his maxim being “that the horse that could not keep itself up was not worth driving.” One of the pair was almost unmanageable in other hands, but it was remarked that “Captain” always conducted himself well when his master drove, and never had an accident.

[Pg 77]Amongst his strictly pastoral cares, two schools for orphans had a foremost place. A female orphan school was first proposed, and Mr. Marsden undertook the direction of the work, and became treasurer to the institution. From its formation in 1800 to the year 1821, two hundred children were admitted. It may be a question whether the children of living parents, however ignorant or even dissolute they may be, should be totally withdrawn from parental sympathies. The presence of a child may restrain, and its artless remonstrances are often known to touch, a vicious father or mother whom no other influence can reach; and Dr. Guthrie’s recent experiment in Edinburgh seems to show us that the best method of Christianizing both child and parent is to instruct the former well by day, and to send him home at night a little missionary to his parents, where other teaching would be scorned. But in the case of orphans no such questions occur, and we must look upon an orphan school with unmixed satisfaction. A male orphan school followed in due course, in which the boys were instructed in some trade and then apprenticed. In both schools the moral and religious training was the chief consideration; yet Mr. Marsden’s connexion with them was attributed by his enemies to a sordid motive, and even those in power, who should have known him better, gave public currency to these injurious reports.

The fact was that when the institutions were founded the treasurer was allowed a small per centage upon the receipts, as a clerical fee or stipend; this he allowed to accumulate until he resigned the office, when he presented the whole sum to the institution. The committee absolutely refusing to accept it, he purchased cattle from the government to the full[Pg 78] amount, and made a present of them to the orphan schools. Soon after his return from England it became necessary to erect new schools. The work was long and tedious, and owing to the want of labour in the colony, and the idle and drunken habits of the labourers, nearly ten years elapsed before they were completed, and the work too was often at a stand for want of funds. These, however, Mr. Marsden—whom no pecuniary obstacles could daunt—supplied, in a great measure, out of his own purse, till his advances amounted to nearly 900l.; and his disinterested conduct in the end occasioned him very considerable loss. To the latest period he never ceased to take the warmest interest in the prosperity of these institutions.

“I am sure,” says his daughter, “my father’s parish was not neglected. He was well known to all his parishioners, as he was in the habit of constantly calling upon them. He was very attentive to the sick, whether at their own homes or at the government hospital. He also took great interest in the education of the young. It was through his instrumentality that many schools were established. His Sunday school, at the time of which I speak, was in a more efficient state than any I have since seen; but this my brother-in-law, the Rev. T. Hassell, had a great deal to do with, as he was then acting as my father’s curate. The factory for the reception of female convicts was built entirely by his suggestion, and to their religious and moral improvement he devoted a good deal of his time. It was principally owing to his endeavours to get this and other institutions in good order that much of his discomfort with his fellow-magistrates and government officers arose.”

The aborigines of Australia were, even when the[Pg 79] colony was first settled, comparatively few in number; and in painful conformity with universal experience, they have wasted away before the white man, and will probably disappear in time from the face of the earth. If the New Zealander stands highest in the scale of savage nature, the native Australian occupies perhaps the lowest place. So low, indeed, was their intellect rated, that when the phrenological system of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim began to occupy attention, some forty years ago, the skulls of several of them were sent over to England to be submitted to the manipulations of its professors, with a view of ascertaining whether the Creator had not thrust into existence a whole race of idiots—men who had neither reason to guide them on the one hand, nor well-developed instinct on the other. They are supposed to be a mixture of the Malay and negro races, but they have nothing of the muscular strength of the negro, nor of his mental pliancy, and both in body and mind are far below the pure Malay. In the infancy of the colony they rambled into the town of Port Jackson in a state of nudity, and when blankets were presented to them they were thrown aside as an incumbrance. They seemed to have no wants beyond those which the dart or spear—never out of their hands—could instantly supply. Their food was the opossum, but when this was not to be found they were by no means delicate; grubs, snakes, putrid whales, and even vermin were eagerly devoured, though fish and oysters were preferred. They are a nomad or wandering people, always moving from place to place in search of food, or from the mere love of change. During the winter, they erect a hut, resembling a beehive, of rude wicker-work besmeared with clay; but in general a mere hurdle, such as we use in England for[Pg 80] penning sheep, placed to windward in the ground, is all their shelter; under this they lie with a fire kindled in the front of it. Our English stragglers have made themselves well acquainted with their habits, frequently living amongst them for weeks together in the bush. These all agree in admiration of the skill with which they throw the dart, which seldom misses, even from a child’s hand, to strike its prey. They are peaceable and inoffensive to strangers, and kind to their “gins,” or wives, and to their children, unless their savage natures are aroused, when they become horribly brutal and vindictive. Few savage tribes have been found whose ideas on religion are less distinct. They believe in a good spirit, Royan, and a bad one, Potoyan; but like all savages—like all men, we may say, either savage or civilized, who know not God—they dread the evil spirit far more than they love the good one. They offer no prayer, and have no worship or sacrifices. Civil government is unknown; authority in the tribe depends on personal strength or cunning. A wandering life with abundance of provisions, amongst their native woods, shores, and mountains, is the sum of all the little happiness they know or seek.

Some efforts were made in the early period of the colony on their behalf. A district near Port Jackson was assigned them, and they were encouraged to reside in it; but it was very soon deserted. The roving habits of the aborigines made any settled residence irksome; and their wants were so few that they would neither engage in trade, nor submit to labour for the sake of wages. It retained the name of the Black Town for many years; but the black men have long since deserted it. Governor Macquarie, after con[Pg 81]sulting with Mr. Marsden, then attempted a farm, and, in connexion with it, a kind of reformatory school at Paramatta, where they were to be civilized and cured of their migratory habits, and instructed in the Christian religion. Mr. Marsden took a warm interest in the scheme, as he did in everything that concerned the welfare of the aborigines. Still it failed; for it was founded, as experience has shown, upon wrong principles. Mr. Marsden, however, is not to be blamed for this; since Governor Macquarie, having now conceived a violent prejudice against him, omitted his name from the committee of management, although the institution was placed in his own parish, introducing those of two junior chaplains; and it was not till the governor’s retirement that he took an active part in its affairs. But the character of the institution was then fixed, and its approaching failure was evident.

Two faults were interwoven with it, either of which must have proved fatal. In the first place, the attempt to confine a nomad, wandering tribe within the precincts of a farm, or to bring them to endure, except it had been by force, the discipline of lads in an English workhouse, was upon the very face of it absurd. These, we must remember, were the early days of English philanthropy amongst wild black men. She had yet to make her blunders and learn her first lessons. Why should a nomad race be settled upon the workhouse plan, or even confined to an English farm? Why should they not rather be encouraged to dwell in tents, carry civilization with them into their own woods and mountains, and, roam, free and fearless, over those vast regions which God had given them to possess, until at last they themselves shall wish to adopt the settled habits of European Chris[Pg 82]tians? A roving life in the wilderness is not of necessity an idle or a barbarous one. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were highly civilized, and eminently devout. “Arabians” and “dwellers in Mesopotamia,” wanderers of the desert, heard the word with gladness, and received the Holy Ghost upon the day of Pentecost. But we do not read that they were required to live in cities, and abandon the long-cherished wilderness, with all its solemn associations and grand delights. And we have not so mean an opinion of Christianity as to believe that it can thrive only in towns well paved and lighted, or in farms neatly fenced and artificially cultivated. The true missionary must track the wandering savage into the desert, and there make himself his guide and friend; and teach him that the gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed of God, inasmuch as it is fitted, as no human contrivance can be fitted, for man, whatever his outward circumstances or his mode of life; that it knows no difference between the dweller in the tent, and in “cities, tall and fenced up to heaven.” “Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free,” are all alike welcome to its blessings; and we can see no good reason why there should not be Christian tribes in the wilderness, as there were patriarchal churches in the plains of the Euphrates, long before the law was given on Mount Sinai.

The other mistake was the same which has tainted other missions in their infancy, and to which we have made some allusion. It was thought necessary to prepare the savage mind for Christianity, by the preliminary discipline of a civilizing process. This is inverting the order in which God proceeds: “The entrance of thy word giveth light.” When the voice of God speaks within, and not before, the demoniac[Pg 83] quits “his dwelling amongst the tombs;” no longer “tears off his raiment” like a brute beast, unconscious of shame; ceases to be “exceeding fierce,” and is now found “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind.” A few efforts upon this, the right evangelical principle as we conceive, have been made from time to time amongst these degraded aborigines; but the success has not been great. A wide field still remains, thinly peopled and spiritually uncultivated. If these lines should be read by our Christian friends in Australia, to them we would venture to commend the glorious enterprise. Let there be one colony at least in which the aborigines shall share the intruder’s prosperity. Let the vast centre of the Australian continent one day rejoice in its thronging tribes of Christian aborigines.

Mr. Marsden’s view of the native character may be gathered from the following statement, which he published in self-defence when charged with indifference as to their conversion. “More than twenty years ago, a native lived with me at Paramatta, and for a while I thought I could make something of him; but at length he got tired, and no inducement could prevail upon him to continue in my house; he took to the bush again, where he has continued ever since. One of my colleagues, the Rev. R. Johnstone, took two native girls into his house, for the express purpose of educating them; they were fed and clothed like Europeans; but in a short time they went into the woods again. Another native, named Daniel, was taken when a boy into the family of Mrs. C.; he was taken to England; mixed there with the best society, and could speak English well; but on his return from England he reverted to his former wild pursuits.” In[Pg 84] reply to the inquiries made by Mr. Marsden, who once met Daniel after he returned to his savage state, he said; “The natives universally prefer a free and independent life, with all its privations, to the least restraint.” Without multiplying instances quoted by Mr. Marsden, the trial he made with an infant shows that his heart was not unfriendly towards these people. “One of my boys, whom I attempted to civilize, was taken from its mother’s breast, and brought up with my own children for twelve years; but he retained his instinctive taste for native food; and he wanted that attachment to me and my family that we had just reason to look for; and always seemed deficient in those feelings of affection which are the very bonds of social life.” This boy ran away at Rio from Mr. Marsden, when returning from England in 1810, but was brought back to the colony by Captain Piper; and died in the Sydney hospital, exhibiting Christian faith and penitence. “I mentioned to the governor,” he adds, “some of these circumstances, but not with any view to create difficulties; so far from it, that I informed him that I was authorized by the Church Missionary Society to assist any plan with pecuniary aid, that was likely to benefit the natives of the colony.” A mission was in fact set on foot by this Society; but from various causes, it failed, and was abandoned.

CHAPTER VI.

Richard Baxter, after describing his ministerial labours at Kidderminster in preaching and visiting from house to house, has these remarkable words: “But all these, my labours, even preaching and preparing for it, were but my recreations, and, as it were, the work of my spare hours; for my writings were my chiefest daily labour.” Mr. Marsden had his recreations, too. Amidst the anxieties of his colonial chaplaincy he found or made opportunities to conduct a work which of itself would have been sufficient to exhaust the energies and to immortalize the memory of any other man. We devote this chapter to a short, and, of necessity, imperfect sketch of these his recreations in the missionary field.

On his return from England in 1810, he found disastrous tidings of the Tahitian mission awaiting his arrival. Disheartened by their utter want of success, divided amongst themselves, distracted with fears of danger from the natives, several of the missionaries had fled from their posts, and taken refuge in New South Wales. The work appeared to be on the eve of ruin, and it was owing in no small measure to the firmness and wise conduct of Mr. Marsden that it was not, for a time at least, abandoned. “Sooner,” he exclaims, in one of his letters to the Society at home, “than that shall be the case, I[Pg 86] will give up my chaplaincy, and go myself and live at Otaheite.” Yet it was no easy task to inspire others with his own courage, or to impart his hopeful spirit to a desponding band of men. He felt the difficulty, and acted towards them in the most considerate manner. Instead of at once insisting on their return, he received them into his family, where it is scarcely necessary to say they were treated with that patriarchal hospitality for which the parsonage of Paramatta was famed. When a few months had passed, and their spirits were cheered and their health restored, the question of their return to Tahiti was introduced and quietly discussed. Their kind and pious host had never for an instant doubted of their ultimate success. We have perused numerous letters addressed by him to the London Missionary Society, and to various friends in England; but in not one of them is the shadow of a doubt expressed as to the triumph of the gospel in Tahiti and the Society Islands; and we may extend the remark to the New Zealand mission, as shown by his correspondence with the Church Missionary Society a few years later. About this period a reaction had taken place in England amongst religious people. The fond hopes they had unwisely entertained of seeing vast results wherever the gospel was introduced among the heathen and upon the first proclamation of it, had been grievously disturbed; and now the tide ran in the opposite direction. Nothing appears to have given Mr. Marsden more uneasiness than the general lukewarmness of the church of Christ at home, and their despondency as to the success of missions. He speaks of his “anxious days and sleepless nights.” But his own courage never failed; and this high undoubting faith, it is beautiful[Pg 87] to observe, rests always on the same foundation. It was not, much as he respected them, his confidence either in the Societies at home, or in their missionaries abroad, but simply in the promises of God, in the power of the gospel, and in the unchanging love of Christ for his “inheritance” among the heathen. Thus the missionaries were induced to return to their deserted posts; and not only so, but to resume their work in a higher spirit of faith and cheerfulness. It was not long before hopeful signs broke out, and within ten years Pomare the sovereign became a Christian king, and the island of Tahiti a Christian land.

The distance of these missions from Australia, and the difficulty of communicating with them, suggested to Mr. Marsden the advantage of employing a vessel entirely on missionary service. When his mind was once made up he lost no time; the consent of the Societies in England could not all at once be gained; so he resolved, at his own cost, to purchase a missionary ship, the first probably that ever floated on the deep, and bought the Active, a brig of a hundred tons burden, for the service of the two great missions on which his heart was fixed. The following letter, addressed to the Rev. George Burder, though written two years later, is introduced here to complete our summary of the re-establishment of the Tahitian mission:

He adds, “I estimate the expenses of the vessel at 1500l. per annum, and I think, if I am not mistaken in my views, that her returns will not be less than 1000l. per annum, and perhaps more. I may venture to say I should not call on the two Societies for more than the sum I have stated, namely, 500l. per annum from this time. I will not demand anything if the returns cover the expenses for the use of the vessel.” These returns were to be obtained by “freighting the Active with the produce of the industry of the natives, and trading with them in return.” This would “stimulate their exertions, correct their vagrant [Pg 89]minds, and enrich them with the comforts and conveniences of civil life.” The letter closes with suggesting yet another mission; for the large heart of the writer saw in the approaching triumph of the gospel in his favourite missions only a call to fresh exertions. Even as Paul, when he had “fully preached from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum,” sighed after fresh labours, and still remoter conquests for his Lord. “I wish to mention to you that it would be a great object if the Society would turn their thoughts a little to the Friendly Islands. New Zealand being on one side, and the Society Islands on the other, with labourers now upon them, the Friendly Islands ought not to be left destitute. These islands are very populous, and as the London Missionary Society first began the work there, I think they should renew their attempt. I cannot recommend any establishment upon any of the islands in the South Seas, unless commerce is more or less attended to, in order to call forth the industry of the natives. Provided the Society as a body will not consent to have anything to do with commerce, I see no reason why a few pious friends might not, who wish to aid the missionary cause. You cannot form a nation without commerce and the civil arts. A person of information who is well acquainted with the Friendly Islands informed me that the labour of a hundred thousand men might be brought into action upon these islands in producing sugar, cordage, cotton, etc.... A hundred thousand men will never form themselves into any regular society, and enjoy the productions of their country without commerce. Should the Society have any doubts upon the point, let them authorize an inquiry into the state of these islands, when there is[Pg 90] an opportunity to examine them, and a report of their inhabitants and their productions laid out before them.” Mr. Marsden then describes the openings at New Zealand, and concludes a long letter thus: “I have stated my sentiments with great haste. You will excuse the hasty scrawl. I can assure you my sincere wish and prayer to the great Head of the church is that all may prosper that love him. I am, dear sir, yours affectionately, S. Marsden.”

Let us now turn to the New Zealand mission, which occupied, from this time, so large a portion of Mr. Marsden’s public life.

We have mentioned the designation of two laymen, Messrs. Hall and King, for this mission by the Church Missionary Society in 1808. They sailed from England, with Mr. Marsden, in 1810, and were soon after followed by Mr. Kendall, and the three assembled at New South Wales, intending to sail thence without delay for the scene of their future work. But here fresh difficulties arose. Mr. Marsden’s intention was to accompany them, and in person to meet the first dangers, and lay, as it were, the first stone. But this the new governor absolutely forbade. To him, and in fact to most men in his circumstances, the whole scheme seemed utterly preposterous. The idea of converting the savages of New Zealand was the chimera of a pious enthusiast—a good and useful man in his way, but one who was not to be allowed thus idly to squander the lives of others, to say nothing of his own. Nor in truth were the governor’s objections altogether without foundation. The last news from[Pg 91] New Zealand was that an English ship, the Boyd, had been seized and burned by the cannibals in the Bay of Islands, and every soul on board, seventy in all, killed and eaten. The report was true, save only that, out of the whole of the ship’s company, two women and a boy had been spared to live in slavery with the savages. A New Zealand chief had sailed on board, as it afterwards appeared, and had been treated with brutal indignities similar to those which Duaterra suffered from the captain of the Santa Anna. He smothered his resentment, and, waiting the return of the Boyd to the Bay of Islands, summoned his tribe, who, on various pretences, crowded the deck of the ship, and at a given signal rushed upon the crew, dispatched them with their clubs and hatchets, and then gorged themselves and their followers on the horrible repast. All then that Mr. Marsden could obtain at present was permission to charter a vessel, if a captain could be found sufficiently courageous to risk his life and ship in such an enterprise, and to send out the three missionaries as pioneers; with a reluctant promise from the governor that if on the ship’s return, all had turned out well, he should not be hindered from following. For some time no such adventurous captain could be found. At length, for the sum of 600l. for a single voyage, an offer was made, but Mr. Marsden looked upon the sum as far too much; and this, with other considerations, induced him to purchase his own missionary brig, the Active, in which Messrs. Hall and Kendall finally set sail for the Bay of Islands. They carried a message to Duaterra, entreating him to receive them kindly, and inviting him, too, to return with them to Paramatta, bringing along with him two or three friendly chiefs.

[Pg 92]Duaterra, after his visit to Mr. Marsden, on his way from England, had again suffered great hardships from the perfidy of the master of the Frederick, with whom he had embarked from New South Wales under an express engagement to be set on shore at the Bay of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. He was carried to Norfolk Island, and there left; and, to aggravate his wrongs and sorrows, the vessel passed within two miles of his own shores and in sight of his long lost home. He was defrauded too of his share of the oil he had procured with his companions, worth 100l. A whaler found him on Norfolk Island, almost naked and in the last stage of want, and brought him once more to Australia and to his friend and patron Mr. Marsden. A short stay sufficed; he sailed again from Sydney, and soon found himself, to his great joy, amongst his friends in New Zealand. On the arrival of the Active with its missionaries—the first messengers of Christ who landed on its shores—he was there to greet them, and to repay, a thousandfold, the kindness of his friend the minister of Paramatta, in the welcome he secured for these defenceless strangers. They carried with them too a present which, trifling as it may seem, was not without its share of influence in the great work; the story is suggestive, and may serve a higher purpose than merely to amuse the reader.

Duaterra had been provided by Mr. Marsden with a supply of wheat for sowing on his return to New Zealand. No such thing as a field of grain of any kind had yet waved its golden ears on that fertile soil. To this accomplished savage the honour belongs of first introducing agriculture into an island destined, within forty years, to rival the best farms of England[Pg 93] both in the value of its crops and the variety of its produce. The neighbouring chiefs and their tribes viewed with wonder first the green ears and then the growing corn. The wild potato, the fern, and a few other roots were the only produce of the earth they were yet acquainted with, and when Duaterra assured them that his field of wheat was to yield the flour out of which the bread and biscuits they had tasted on English ships were made, they tore up several plants, expecting to find something resembling their own potato at the root. That the ears themselves should furnish the materials for a loaf was not to be believed. Duaterra meant to impose upon them, or else he had been duped himself, but they were not to be cajoled with the tales of a traveller. The field was reaped and the corn threshed out, when Duaterra was mortified with the discovery that he was not provided with a mill. He made several attempts to grind his corn with the help of a coffee-mill borrowed from a trading-ship, but without success; and now, like the inventor of steam navigation, and other benefactors of their species nearer home, he was laughed at for his simplicity. It is strange that the ancient Roman quern, a hollow stone in which the grain was pounded, the rudest form in fact of the pestle and mortar, should not have occurred to him; but the total want of invention is an invariable characteristic of savage nature. At length the Active brought the important present of a hand-mill for grinding corn. Duaterra’s friends assembled to watch the experiment, still incredulous of the promised result; but when the meal began to stream out beneath the machine their astonishment was unbounded; and when a cake was produced, hastily baked in a frying-pan, they shouted[Pg 94] and danced for joy, Duaterra was now to be trusted when he told them that the missionaries were good men. And thus the first favourable impression was made upon the savage Maories, whose race was in the next generation to become a civilized and Christian people.

Messrs Hall and Kendall, having introduced themselves and their mission in New Zealand, now, in obedience to their instructions, returned to Sydney accompanied by Duaterra and six other chiefs, amongst whom was Duaterra’s uncle the famous Shunghie, or Hongi, the most powerful of New Zealand chieftains; such was the confidence which Mr. Marsden’s name, together with the good conduct of the missionaries, had now inspired. The Active reached New South Wales on the 22nd of August, 1814. Nothing could exceed the joy which Mr. Marsden experienced on the successful termination of the voyage, and being filled with an earnest desire to promote the dissemination of the gospel amongst the New Zealanders, and having obtained the governor’s permission, he determined to accompany the missionaries on their return to the Bay of Islands. To his friend, Avison Terry, Esq., he wrote just before he sailed, Oct. 7, 1814—“It is my intention to visit New Zealand and see what can be done to promote the eternal welfare of the inhabitants of that island. I have now several of the chiefs living with me at Paramatta. They are as noble a race of men as are to be met with in any part of the world. I trust I shall be able, in some measure, to put a stop to those dreadful murders which have been committed upon the island for some years past, both by the Europeans and the natives. They are a much injured people, notwithstanding all that has been advanced[Pg 95] against them. The time is now come, in my opinion, for them to be favoured with the everlasting gospel; and I trust to hear the joyful sound in those dark and dreary regions of sin and spiritual bondage. I have long had the most ardent wish to visit these poor heathen, but have never till the present time obtained permission. I have submitted my views to the Church Missionary Society, and solicited their aid. The expense of establishing a mission here will at first be very considerable.” ... [Here he mentions his purchase of the Active, etc.] “Should the Society approve of my views, no doubt they will give their support, but if they cannot enter into them in the manner I do, I cannot expect that assistance from them which may be required. My own means will enable me to set the mission on foot in the first instance, and I have little doubt but it will succeed.” Zeal such as this, tempered with discretion and guided by the “wisdom which cometh from above,” in answer to many believing prayers, could scarcely fail of its sure reward.

On the 19th of November, 1814, he embarked on his great mission, with a motley crew, such as (except perhaps on some other missionary ship) has seldom sailed in one small vessel—savages and Christian teachers and enterprising mechanics, their wives and children, besides cattle and horses. Of this strangely assorted company he gives the following description: “The number of persons on board the Active, including women and children, was thirty-five; the master, his wife and son, Messrs. Kendall, Hall, and King, with their wives and children, eight New Zealanders, (including Duaterra and his uncle the great warrior Shunghie or Hongi) two Otaheitans, and four Europeans belonging to the vessel, besides Mr. John[Pg 96] Lydiard Nicholas and myself; there were also two sawyers, one smith, and a runaway convict whom we afterwards found on board, a horse and two mares, one bull and two cows, with a few sheep and poultry. The bull and cows have been presented by Governor Macquarie from his Majesty’s herd.” On the 15th December, they were in sight of land; the next day, the chiefs were sent on shore, and a friendly communication was at once opened with the natives. But even before they had landed “a canoe came alongside the Active, with plenty of fish, and shortly afterwards a chief followed from the shore, who immediately came on board.” Mr. Marsden’s fame, as the friend of the New Zealanders, had arrived before him. “I told them my name, with which they were all well acquainted.... We were now quite free from all fear, as the natives seemed desirous to show us attention by every possible means in their power.” The Active dropped her anchor a few days after at Wangaroa, near the Bay of Islands, the scene of the massacre of the Boyd’s crew, and there amongst the very cannibals by whose hands their countrymen had fallen so recently the first Christian mission to New Zealand was opened. A fierce and unholy revenge had been taken, in the murder of Tippahee, a native chieftain, and all his family, by an English crew who had visited Wangaroa after the Boyd’s destruction, and Tippahee, as Mr. Marsden always maintained, suffered unjustly, having had no share in the dreadful massacre. But thus it was; and amongst a people so exasperated did these servants of the most high God venture forth as the heralds of the gospel. Seldom since the words of the prophet were first uttered have they had, in reference to missionaries, a more significant, or a more correct[Pg 97] appropriation than they now received. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation.”

Mr. Marsden’s journal of this his first visit to New Zealand is a document of singular interest, and when published at the time in England, it made a deep impression. It is written in plain and forcible language, and is characterized by that vein of good sense and practical wisdom which so distinguished him. There is no display of his own sufferings, trials and privations, no affectation of laboured and studied expression, no highly coloured and partial representation of the savage condition of the natives. All his aim is to lay the truth before the Society and the friends of missions, and in doing so he has written with a degree of accuracy and honest feeling, which while they inform the understanding at once reach the heart. From this unpretending record, a few selections will be laid before the reader. And here, too, we would, once for all, acknowledge our obligations to his “companion in travel,” J. L. Nicholas, Esq., to whose manuscript journal of the visit to New Zealand, as well indeed as for other communications of great interest on the subject of Mr. Marsden’s life and labours, we shall be much indebted through the future pages of our work.

Duaterra and Shunghie had often told of the bloody war, arising out of the affair of the Boyd, that was raging, while they were at Paramatta, between the people of Wangaroa (the tribe of Tippahee) and the inhabitants of the Bay of Islands, who were their own friends and followers; the Wangaroans accusing the people of the Bay of Islands of having conspired with the English in the murder of Tippahee. When the[Pg 98] Active arrived, several desperate battles had been fought, and the war was likely to continue.

Mr. Marsden was determined to establish peace amongst these contending tribes. He was known already as the friend of Duaterra and Shunghie; he now felt that he must convince the other party of his good intentions. He did not come amongst them as an ally of either, but as the friend of both; he resolved therefore to pass some time with the Wangaroans; and with a degree of intrepidity truly astonishing even in him, not only ventured on shore, but actually passed the night, accompanied by his friend Mr. Nicholas alone, with the very savages who had killed and eaten his countrymen. After a supper of fish and potatoes in the camp of Shunghie, they walked over to the hostile camp distant about a mile. They received the two white strangers very cordially. “We sat down amongst them, and the chiefs surrounded us.” Mr. Marsden then introduced the subject of his embassy, explained the object of the missionaries in coming to live amongst them, and showed how much peace would conduce in every way to the welfare of all parties. A chief, to whom the Europeans gave the name of George, acted as interpreter; he had sailed on board an English ship, and spoke English well. Mr. Marsden tells us how the first night was passed: “As the evening advanced the people began to retire to rest in different groups. About eleven o’clock Mr. Nicholas and I wrapped ourselves in our great coats, and prepared for rest. George directed me to lie by his side. His wife and child lay on the right hand, and Mr. Nicholas close by. The night was clear; the stars shone bright, and the sea in our front was smooth; around us were innumerable spears stuck[Pg 99] upright in the ground, and groups of natives lying in all directions, like a flock of sheep upon the grass, as there were neither tents nor huts to cover them. I viewed our present situation with sensations and feelings that I cannot express, surrounded by cannibals who had massacred and devoured our countrymen. I wondered much at the mysteries of providence, and how these things could be. Never did I behold the blessed advantage of civilization in a more grateful light than now. I did not sleep much during the night. My mind was too seriously occupied by the present scene, and the new and strange ideas it naturally excited. About three in the morning I rose and walked about the camp, surveying the different groups of natives. When the morning light returned we beheld men, women, and children, asleep in all directions like the beasts of the field. I had ordered the boat to come on shore for us at daylight; and soon after Duaterra arrived in the camp.”

In the morning he gave an invitation to the chiefs to breakfast on board the Active, which they readily accepted. “At first I entertained doubts whether the chiefs would trust themselves with us or not, on account of the Boyd, lest we should detain them when we had them in our power; but they showed no signs of fear, and went on board with apparent confidence. The axes, billhooks, prints, etc., I intended to give them were all got ready after breakfast; the chiefs were seated in the cabin in great form to receive the presents, I sat on the one side, and they on the other side of the table; Duaterra stood and handed me each article separately that I was to give them. Messrs. Kendall, Hall, and King, with the master of the Active and his son, were all one after the other intro[Pg 100]duced to the chiefs. The chiefs were at the same time informed what duty each of the three persons were appointed to do. Mr. Kendall to instruct their children, Mr. Hall to build houses, boats, etc., Mr. King to make fishing lines, and Mr. Hanson to command the Active, which would be employed in bringing axes and such things as were wanted from Sydney, to enable them to cultivate their lands and improve their country. When these ceremonies were over, I expressed my hope that they would have no more wars, but from that time would be reconciled to each other. Duaterra, Shunghie, and Koro Koro shook hands with the chiefs of Wangaroa, and saluted each other as a token of reconciliation by joining their noses together. I was much gratified to see these men at amity once more.”

The chieftains now took their leave, much pleased with the attention of Mr. Marsden, and still more so with his presents; and they promised for the future to protect the missionaries and never to injure the European traders. Some of the presents excited no little wonder; no New Zealander, except the few who like Duaterra had been on foreign travel, had ever seen either cows or horses, for the largest quadruped yet naturalized in the island was the pig, and even that had been introduced but recently. Duaterra had often told his wondering countrymen of the horse and its rider, and in return was always laughed at; but when the horses were now landed and Mr. Marsden actually mounted one of them, they stood in crowds and gazed in mute astonishment. These traits of infant civilization are not without their use to those who may hereafter be cast among barbarous tribes, or may attempt their improvement.

[Pg 101]The first Sunday on which the one true God was worshipped in New Zealand since the creation, will be for ever memorable in her annals. It was also Christmas-day, the 25th of December, 1815, “a day much to be remembered.” Mr. Marsden thus describes it: “Duaterra passed the remaining part of the previous day in preparing for the sabbath. He inclosed about half an acre of land with a fence, erected a pulpit and reading desk in the centre, and covered the whole either with black native cloth or some duck which he had brought with him from Port Jackson. He also procured some bottoms of old canoes, and fixed them up as seats on each side of the pulpit, for the Europeans to sit upon; intending to have divine service performed there the next day. These preparations he made of his own accord; and in the evening informed me that everything was ready for divine service. I was much pleased with this singular mark of his attention. The reading-desk was about three feet from the ground, and the pulpit about six feet. The black cloth covered the top of the pulpit, and hung over the sides; the bottom of the pulpit, as well as the reading-desk, was part of a canoe. The whole was becoming, and had a solemn appearance. He had also erected a flagstaff on the highest hill in the village, which had a very commanding view.

“On Sunday morning, when I was upon deck, I saw the English flag flying, which was a pleasing sight in New Zealand. I considered it as the signal and the dawn of civilization, liberty and religion, in that dark and benighted land. I never viewed the British colours with more gratification; and flattered myself they would never be removed, till the natives of that island enjoyed all the happiness of British subjects.

[Pg 102]“About ten o’clock we prepared to go ashore, to publish for the first time the glad tidings of the gospel. I was under no apprehension for the safety of the vessel; and, therefore, ordered all on board to go on shore to attend divine service, except the master and one man. When we landed, we found Koro Koro, Duaterra, and Shunghie, dressed in regimentals, which Governor Macquarie had given them, with their men drawn up, ready to be marched into the inclosure to attend divine service. They had their swords by their sides, and switches in their hands. We entered the inclosure, and were placed on the seats on each side of the pulpit. Koro Koro marched his men, and placed them on my right hand, in the rear of the Europeans: and Duaterra placed his men on the left. The inhabitants of the town, with the women and children, and a number of other chiefs, formed a circle round the whole. A very solemn silence prevailed—the sight was truly impressive. I rose up and began the service with singing the Old Hundredth Psalm; and felt my very soul melt within me when I viewed my congregation, and considered the state they were in. After reading the service, during which the natives stood up and sat down at the signals given by Koro Koro’s switch, which was regulated by the movements of the Europeans, it being Christmas day, I preached from the second chapter of St. Luke’s gospel and tenth verse, ‘Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy,” etc. The natives told Duaterra that they could not understand what I meant. He replied, that they were not to mind that now, for they would understand by-and-by; and that he would explain my meaning as far as he could. When I had done preaching, he informed them what I had been talking about. Duaterra was[Pg 103] very much pleased that he had been able to make all the necessary preparations for the performance of divine worship in so short a time, and we felt much obliged to him for his attention. He was extremely anxious to convince us that he would do everything in his power, and that the good of his country was his principal consideration.

“In this manner, the gospel has been introduced into New Zealand; and I fervently pray that the glory of it may never depart from its inhabitants till time shall be no more.”

The confidence of the natives in Mr. Marsden was now unbounded, and scarcely less was the confidence he reposed in them; and he resolved upon a short coasting voyage, with the view of exploring their different harbours, and making arrangements for the future extension of the mission. Many of the chiefs and warriors, led by Duaterra, wished to sail with him, and without the slightest misgiving, twenty-eight savages, fully armed after the fashion of their country, were invited on board the Active, manned as she was by only seven Europeans. “I do not believe,” Mr. Nicholas observes, “that a similar instance can be shown of such unlimited confidence placed in a race of savages known to be cannibals. We are wholly in their power, and what is there to hinder them from abusing it? Next to the overruling providence of God, there is nothing but the character of the ship, which seems to have something almost sacred in their eyes, and the influence of Mr. Marsden’s name, which acts as a talisman amongst them. They feel convinced that he is sacrificing his own ease and comfort to promote their welfare.”

Their leave of absence having nearly expired, Mr.[Pg 104] Marsden and his companions were now obliged to prepare for their voyage homeward. They had laid the foundations of a great work—how great, none of them could tell. But they were full of faith in God, while, as patriots, they exulted in the prospect of extending the renown of dear old England. Mr. Marsden, in his conversations with the natives, explained to them the nature of our government, and the form of trial by jury; he discoursed with them upon the evils of polygamy, and showed his marked abhorrence of their darling vices—theft and lying. A chisel being lost from the Active a boat was sent on shore, manned by Duaterra and other chieftains, to demand restitution; the culprit was not found, nor the implement restored; but a whole village was aroused from its slumbers at midnight, and the inhabitants literally trembled with fear of the consequences when they saw the angry chieftains, though no harm was permitted to ensue. An example of high integrity was always set. Mr. Marsden might, for instance, have obtained land, or timber, or, in short, whatever he required in exchange for ammunition and muskets; but he sternly interdicted the sale or barter of these articles upon any terms whatever, and to this resolution he always adhered. Again and again does he express his determination, as well in this its earliest stage as in later periods of the mission, rather to abandon the whole work, which was far dearer to him than life itself, than to suffer it to be tainted by what he considered so nefarious a barter. “I further told them,” he says, “that the smith should make axes or hoes, or any other tools they wanted; but that he was on no account to repair any pistols or muskets, or make any warlike instruments, no not even for the[Pg 105] greatest chiefs upon the island.” And he “took an opportunity, upon all occasions, to impress upon their minds the horrors their cannibalism excited; how much their nation was disgraced by it, and dreaded on this account.”

One thing still remained to be done. The missionaries possessed no land, and were liable, after his departure, to be removed or driven out at the mere caprice of the tribes amongst whom they settled. He therefore determined, if possible, to purchase for them a small estate. It consisted of about two hundred acres; and the first plot of ground to which England can lay claim in New Zealand was formally made over in a deed, of which Mr. Nicholas has fortunately preserved a transcript. It was executed in the presence of a number of chiefs, who were assembled to take leave of the Active on the day before she sailed, and ran as follows:—

To this was affixed a complete drawing of the “amoco,” or tattooing of Gunna’s face, done by Shunghie, on one side of which he set his mark.

We need scarcely remind the reader how closely this transaction resembles the famous contract of William Penn with the native Indians, by which he became possessed of Pennsylvania. Much and justly as Penn has been admired, Mr. Marsden’s conduct is even more worthy of respect. Penn sought to found a colony, to place himself at its head, and to associate his own name with it through generations to come. The chaplain of Paramatta had not even these motives of honest and laudable ambition; he sought nothing for himself, nothing for his country, nothing even for the church of which he was a member, and which he warmly loved. His one aim was to evangelize New[Pg 107] Zealand; to bring a nation of cannibals from darkness into the marvellous light of the gospel, and from the power of Satan unto God. His own name appears on the instrument only as the agent or representative of a missionary society in whom the property was vested; and yet at the time the purchase was made he was uncertain whether the bare expenses of his voyage, or even the cost and charges of his vessel, would ever be repaid to him. He sought neither wealth, nor honour, nor preferment, but acted with a simple aim to the glory of God. The memorial of such a name can never perish amongst men; and should it be forgotten, still his record is on high.

Mr. Marsden returned from his first voyage to New Zealand accompanied by no less than ten chiefs, and landed at Sydney on the 23rd of March, 1815. He and Mr. Nicholas immediately presented themselves to the governor, who “congratulated them on their safe return,” from what, in common with all the colony, he regarded as a most perilous and rash adventure.

CHAPTER VII.

It was not to be expected that a career of unbroken success and easy triumph should crown the infant mission in New Zealand. Reverses and delays were to be looked for; they were in the nature of the work itself; and for such trials Mr. Marsden was prepared. But he had scarcely arrived at Paramatta before he was involved in sharper conflicts. No doubt they were a part of God’s discipline of love: for if Paul required “a thorn in the flesh” lest he “should be exalted above measure,” meaner disciples may surely expect to meet with stern rebuffs, in their career of usefulness and honour; and they will even learn to accept them with a thankful and a joyous heart.

The first discouragement was the death of Duaterra. Mr. Marsden had left him sick; and four days after his departure he expired, surrounded by his heathen countrymen, from whose superstitions, even to the last, he was by no means free. “He appeared at this awful moment,” Mr. Marsden writes, describing his last interview, “not to know what to do. He wished me to pray with him, which I did; but the superstitions of his country had evidently a strong hold upon his mind; the priest was always with him, night and day. Duaterra seemed at a loss where to repose his afflicted mind; his views of the gospel were not suffi[Pg 109]ciently clear to remove his superstitions; and at the same time he was happy to hear what I had to say to him. What horrors do these poor people suffer when they come to die!” His favourite wife, Dahoo, was inconsolable; and while Shunghie and his near relatives cut themselves with knives till the blood gushed out, she sought and found an opportunity to put a period to her own life by hanging herself, at a short distance from the body of her husband. None of the natives, not even her relatives, appeared shocked or surprised. “Her mother,” Mr. Kendall wrote, “wept while she was composing the limbs of her daughter; but she applauded her resolution, and the sacrifice which she had made for the man she so tenderly loved. Her father observed her corpse without any apparent concern. I could not discover a tear at the time it was brought before him. Two of her brothers smiled on the occasion, and said, ‘it was a good thing at New Zealand.’ It is common for women to act thus when their husbands die; they think that they then go to them.” Mr. Marsden, for a time, was almost overwhelmed. “I could not but view Duaterra, as he lay dying, with wonder and astonishment; and could scarcely bring myself to believe that the Divine Goodness would remove from the earth a man whose life appeared of such infinite importance to his country, which was just emerging from barbarism and superstition. No doubt but he had done his work and finished his appointed course, though I fondly imagined he had only just begun his race. He was in the prime and vigour of manhood: I judge his age to be about twenty-eight years. In reflecting on this awful and mysterious event, I am led to exclaim, with the apostle of the Gentiles, ‘Oh the depth of the[Pg 110] riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!’”

He was indeed a noble specimen of human nature in its savage state. His character was cast in the mould of heroes: at the very period of his death, after ten years of as much privation, danger, and hardship as nature could well bear, his courage was unsubdued, and his patriotism and enterprise unabated. He told Mr. Marsden with an air of triumph, “I have now introduced the cultivation of wheat into New Zealand; New Zealand will become a great country; in two years more I shall be able to export wheat to Port Jackson, in exchange for hoes, axes, spades, tea and sugar.” He had made arrangements for farming on a large scale, and had formed his plan for building a new town, with regular streets, after the European mode, on a beautiful situation which commanded a view of the harbour and the adjacent country. “I accompanied him to the spot,” says Mr. M.; “we examined the ground fixed on for the town, and the situation where the church was to stand.” Had he lived he would have been the Ulysses of his Ithaca—perhaps its Alfred; and nothing in his whole life gives us a juster idea of Mr. Marsden’s sagacity and keen perception than the fact of his singling out Duaterra, a sick and apparently dying common sailor on shipboard, and training him to be a powerful instrument, in God’s hands, for the civilization of New Zealand.

Other trials followed the death of Duaterra. Fresh wars broke out. One hostile tribe encamped in sight of the mission premises, and, no longer restrained by Mr. Marsden’s presence, threatened, not indeed to expel the missionaries, but to kill and eat[Pg 111] them. For months together the affrighted band kept watch night and day; their children were laid to sleep in their cots dressed, to be ready for instant flight, and the boat was always kept afloat, with its oars and sail in readiness. The storm blew over, and they remained stedfast at their posts. Soon afterwards, the Wesleyan Methodists established their important and successful mission in the island, and the missionaries gained strength from each other in society and mutual counsel. The first Wesleyan missionary, the Rev. Samuel Leigh, was well known at Paramatta, and Mr. Marsden viewed his labours with thankfulness and hope; but the reports which reached him from time to time of the difficulties to which the missions were exposed still added much to his anxieties.

And now a series of persecutions began, which, while they never cowed his brave spirit, harassed and disturbed him more than those who were acquainted only with the outward features of his strong, dauntless character would have readily believed. It is greatly to his honour that all the sufferings to which he was exposed—newspaper libels, official misrepresentations, and personal abuse—arose immediately out of his endeavours to raise the morals of the colony, and to protect the unhappy women who came out as convicts, and were at that time exposed by most iniquitous neglect to still further degradation.

Just before his departure for New Zealand, he had addressed an official letter to the governor, calling his attention to the present state of Paramatta and its neighbourhood, as far as it related to its public morals and police, and especially with regard to the female convicts, of whom upwards of one hundred and fifty, besides seventy children, were employed in a government[Pg 112] factory there, and whose condition, as far as we can venture to describe it, may be gathered from the following passage. The scene is painful; it is the dark side of our colonial history; but those who will not listen to these recitals can know but little of the obligations which society is under to such men as Howard and Samuel Marsden, or to heroic women, such as Mrs. Fry. In his letter to the governor he says:

He urges upon the governor the necessity of at least providing lodgings in barracks for these poor creatures. “When I am called upon,” he adds, “in the hour of sickness and want to visit them in the general hospital, or in the wretched hovels where they lodge, my mind is often oppressed beyond measure at the sight of their sufferings.... And if their dreary prospect beyond the grave be viewed in a religious light it far exceeds in horror the utmost bounds of human imagination. As their minister I must answer ere long at the bar of Divine justice for my duty to these objects of vice and woe, and often feel inexpressible anguish of spirit, in the moment of their approaching dissolution, on my own and their account, and follow them to the grave with awful forebodings lest I should be found at last to have neglected any part of my public duty as their minister and magistrate, and by so doing contributed to their eternal ruin. So powerful are these reflections at times that I envy the situation of the most menial servant who is freed from this sacred and solemn responsibility, namely, the care of immortal souls.... I am of opinion that no clergyman was ever placed in so painful and trying a situation as far as relates to the moral and religious state of the people committed to his care. I see them devoted to vice, and infamy, and extreme wretchedness while living, and when they come to die suffering all the horror of mind and anguish of spirit that guilt can possibly inspire, without the means of applying any remedy in either case.... I humbly conceive it is incompatible with the character and wish of the British nation that her own exiles should be exposed[Pg 114] to such privations and dangerous temptations, when she is daily feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, and receiving into her friendly, I may add pious bosom, strangers whether savage or civilized of every nation under heaven.”

The governor courteously replied, acknowledging the receipt of his letter; but no further steps were taken; and after waiting eighteen months “without the most distant prospect of obtaining relief for the female convicts from the colonial government,” he sent a copy of his own letter, with the governor’s answer, to the British government at home. By them it was submitted to a select committee of the House of Commons, when, in 1819, the state of our jails came under the consideration of parliament, and was afterwards printed in their report; Lord Bathurst, the colonial secretary, having previously submitted it to Governor Macquarie, requesting his opinion on the several matters it contained. Great exasperation followed; it seemed for a time as if the whole colony, with scarcely an exception, had risen as one man to crush the principal chaplain, who alone had dared to expose its profligacy and to check its abuses. The storm indeed had begun to mutter around his head before Lord Bathurst’s communication was received. The “Sydney Gazette,” which was under the immediate control of the governor, was allowed to publish from week to week the most scandalous libels upon his character. At length, a letter appeared signed Philo-free, which Mr. Marsden suspected, and at length discovered, to have been written by the governor’s secretary; it was aimed not merely against himself—this he could have borne in silence—but against the conduct and the moral character of the missionaries[Pg 115] in the South Sea Islands, whose reputation he felt it his duty at every hazard to protect. He therefore appealed to the laws for shelter and redress, and two successive verdicts justified the course he took. There were at the time many, even of his warm friends, in England, who were almost disposed to blame him for a too sensitive and litigious spirit. But when the whole case lay before them, the wisest and the mildest men absolved him from the charge, and heartily approved his conduct. In the place of any comments of our own we will lay before the reader, in his own words, some of Mr. Marsden’s views upon the subject. They will see the principles by which he was actuated, and they will learn with amazement how great the difficulties with which the friends of missions have had to contend from their own countrymen. The first letter is addressed to the Rev. George Burder, and was read, as appears from the endorsement it bears, in the committee of the London Missionary Society, July 10th, 1818, having been received on the 25th of June.

Yet he had, in truth, no ground for this despondency. St. Paul laid the foundations of flourishing churches amidst “a great fight of afflictions;” what wonder if one of the greatest of Protestant missions in a later age should share in trials from which “the[Pg 117] churches in Macedonia and Achaia” were not exempt? The letter proceeds thus:

In the same strain he writes to his friend Dr. Mason Good, inclosing the letter of Philo-free, and other documents. Amongst other threats, representations to the archbishop and the bishop of London had been muttered in the colony, with a view no doubt of inducing them to withdraw him from his post. “Should you learn,” he says, “that any representations are made to the bishops, and you should deem it necessary, I will thank you to send them the documents I have transmitted, or any part of them, for their information. I should also wish Mr. Wilberforce to be acquainted with them, if you will at any time take the trouble to lay them before him.” Then turning to brighter objects, he has the following remarkable passage:

He soon had reason to adopt a happier strain. The trial was severe, the more so perhaps from the ardour of his own temperament, which, no doubt, required the chastisement, which became in the highest sense a blessing both to himself and others. Writing to the same friend, 3rd October, 1818, he says: “When I take a retrospect of all that has passed in this colony since my return, I see, with wonder and gratitude, the Divine goodness overruling the wills and affections of sinful men, and making all things unite in promoting his glory. ‘Philo-free’ will not be without its benefit to the great cause. Had this libel never appeared, the character, constitution and object of the Church, and London Missionary Societies would not have been known in this settlement for[Pg 120] many years to come; nor would they have gained the friends which they will eventually do here.”

Letters of congratulation flowed in rapidly, both on account of his missionary exploits in New Zealand, and of his personal triumph in New South Wales. We can afford only to give a specimen of each; the one to show how the successes of the gospel thrilled English Christians with joy in the infancy of missions; and the other to exhibit the warm affection with which the great missionary leader of the southern seas was regarded by his friends at home.

Dr. Mason Good, writing on the subject of the libel, under the date of April, 1818, says: “The triumph you have gained is indeed complete ... persevere, then, my dear friend, in the same good and great and magnanimous course. The eyes of the world are upon you, and what is more, the eye of Him who governs the world, and will never fail to give efficacy to his own instruments, and ultimate success to his designs. To this time, however, notwithstanding all the terrible threats that have been thrown out against you, not a single syllable of complaint has arrived from any one; do not therefore let your spirits fail. Depend upon esteem and support at home, for your perseverance and manly conduct have produced a very deep and popular sensation in every quarter in which you would wish to stand well.”

In addition to these gratifying testimonies from[Pg 122] home, Mr. Marsden received a public mark of approbation from the officers of the 46th regiment, then stationed in the colony, who with a high and chivalrous sense of what was due to one who single handed had so long maintained the cause of truth and righteousness, stepped forward to offer their tribute of respect. He replied as follows:—

And again: “Had you not arrived in New South Wales and acted the honourable part you did, the few who were marked for future conquest would not have been able to have stood out longer, but must have either yielded to superior force, or have withdrawn from the colony. Some would not have had strength of mind sufficient to have carried on a perpetual warfare against such an unequal force, and thus would not have been able to meet the expense of continued resistance. You just arrived in time to turn the wavering balance, and to inspire the desponding with hopes.”

[Pg 124]A vote of thanks, in the most cordial terms, was also presented to him at the anniversary meeting of the Church Missionary Society, at the Freemasons’ Tavern, in 1819. It would have been presented to the annual meeting of the previous year, but it was a mark of respect which had never yet been paid to any individual by the Society. “The circumstances, however, which have lately transpired,” so writes his friend, Dr. Mason Good, who was a member of the committee, “the severe and important battle you have fought, and the triumph you have so gloriously achieved, have induced the Society to step out of their usual routine on this occasion, and to show, not only to yourself, but to the world at large, the full sense they entertain of the honourable and upright part you have taken, and their unanimous determination to give you all their support. I agree with you most fully that your contest has not been a personal one, but that the important objects of the Society have been at stake, and that the victory you have obtained is of more importance to the cause of virtue, honour, and true religion, and more especially to the cause of Christian missions in Australasia, than to yourself.”

We shall conclude our notice of these painful conflicts with two letters, the one from Lord Gambier, the other from the venerable Simeon. The former breathes the warm heart of a sailor and the mature wisdom of an experienced Christian. And thus while British soldiers were ready to acknowledge the integrity of Mr. Marsden, the navy, as represented by one of her great heroes, stood forward likewise in his behalf.

In this age of “reformatories,” when the treatment of our prisoners has become a popular question, it is impossible to read without deep interest such letters as the following. Mr. Marsden had taken up the cause of the degraded female prisoners in New South Wales. Mrs. Fry in England hears of his benevolent exertions, and hastens to express her joy; and thus she writes to the prison-philanthropist of the southern world:—

Through such toils and conflicts our predecessors of the last generation passed, before they could lay effectually the foundations of those great principles of humanity and justice in the public mind, which are now yielding their abundant fruit.

CHAPTER VIII.

[Pg 130]The New Zealand mission still continued to occupy Mr. Marsden’s thoughts. He seems to have been always alert, turning every hint to account, seizing every occasion and employing every likely instrument to promote the grand design. The excellent quality of the New Zealand flax had not escaped him. He induced two young New Zealanders, whom he had brought with him to Paramatta, to visit England, which they did in H. M. ship Kangaroo, and were placed under the care of his friends in London. “I wish on no account,” he writes to Mr. Pratt, “that they should be idle; if they cannot be useful in forming a vocabulary, (of the Maori language of which he was now anxious that a grammar should be prepared) let them be put into a rope walk, and be kept close to labour while they remain in England.” They were both chieftains, Tooi and Teterree; still the reader must not suppose the rope walk was to them a degrading employment. Mr. Marsden had another object in view besides their improvement, and he wished to impart to his friends in London something of his own enthusiasm in behalf of the Maorie race. “The Society will see,” he says in his letter to the secretary, Mr. Pratt, “from these two young men what the natives of New Zealand are. They are prepared to receive any instruction that we can give them; they are fine young men, and in temper and natural parts very like their countrymen in general.” They seem to have deserved the character here given them. We insert a letter from each, written while they were in England. The first is addressed to Mr. Pratt while Tooi was on a visit amongst the manufactories of Staffordshire and Shropshire.

[Pg 131]Their English education being completed, the young chieftains returned to Paramatta, and Mr. Marsden embarked a second time for New Zealand, taking Tooi and Teterree with him, with several missionaries, three mechanics and their families. They landed at Rangheehoa, in the Bay of Islands, on the 12th August. The rival chiefs Shunghie and Koro-Koro now contended for the site of the new missionary settlement which Mr. Marsden contemplated, each being anxious that his own domain should be preferred, and offering a grant of land. The spot was selected at Kiddee Kiddee (or Keri-Keri) a district in the territory of Shunghie, at the head of a fine harbour; but such was the distress of the disappointed chieftain, whose part was taken by young Tooi, that Mr. Marsden almost relented: “He made strong appeals to our feelings, and urged his request by every argument that he could advance, so that we were obliged to promise to accompany him on the next day to Parroa, and that we would build him and Tooi a house if the situation pleased us, and send one or two Europeans to reside amongst them.” The stores were now landed, and all the beach exhibited a scene of happiness and busy civilization; fourteen natives sawing timber, others cutting knees, etc.; “a sight more grateful to a benevolent mind could not possibly have been seen; our hearts overflowed with gratitude. We viewed the various operations with delight, and considered them the dawn of civil and religious liberty to this land of darkness, superstition, and cruelty.” Such were the comments which the missionary leader noted down at the time, and in reading them we are made to feel how much Christian benevolence excels the mere selfishness of the most enterprising colonist.[Pg 132] Simply for the good of others, without the hope or wish of reaping any other advantage than that of extending the kingdom of God amongst a savage race, the little missionary band, self exiled, and consecrated to a life of unknown toil and hardship, exult in laying the foundations of their settlement, as the Jews of old exulted when they began to build their temple to the living God. On the next sabbath day, the work was consecrated with prayer and praise. Mr. Marsden’s simple language best describes the scene:—

During this three months’ sojourn, besides the attention which Mr. Marsden gave to the missions in the Bay of Islands, he made a circuitous journey of seven hundred miles, exploring the country with a view to more extensive operations. His arrival over land and in health, at the Bay of Islands, on his return,[Pg 133]
[Pg 134]
[Pg 135]relieved the minds of his anxious friends the missionaries, and “gave them additional cause,” they say, “to bless and thank God for his protecting care, and that he had again heard and answered our supplications.” “There is not one in ten thousand, I think,” writes Mr. Hall, “who could or would have borne the privations, difficulties, and dangers, which he has undergone. I pray that he may reap the fruits of his labour by the New Zealanders turning from their degraded state to serve the only living and true God.” Mr. Marsden’s journal of this second visit will be valuable in time to come, as perhaps the best record in existence of the character and habits of a wonderful people, on whom civilization had not yet dawned, and whose spiritual darkness was profound. He landed, during a coasting voyage, with young Tooi, on the small island of Motooroa. “The first object that struck my eye was a man’s head stuck on a pole near the hut where we were to sleep; the face appeared beautifully tattooed; it was the head of a chief who was killed by Shunghie’s people. The sight,” he says, “naturally excited feelings of horror in my breast.” Most men would have felt something of alarm. But Mr. Marsden seems to have been a perfect stranger to fear; and if courage, whether physical or moral, makes a hero, he must be ranked high in the heroic class. He merely adds, “This caused me to value more and more the blessing of Divine revelation, and the blessing of civil government.”

He visited an island where he met with a singular spectacle. A number of natives were at work, breaking up the ground with a sort of spatula, or wooden spade, to plant their sweet potato. Amongst these was Koro-Koro’s head wife, or queen. “Her Majesty was working hard with a wooden spade, digging the ground for potatoes, with several of the women and some men.” The royal infant lay on the ground sprawling and kicking by her side; “the old queen earnestly requested that I would give her a hoe, showing me the difficulty she had in digging with a stick; a request with which I promised to comply.” We leave the reader to admire at leisure the Homeric simplicity of the scene, or to indulge in those sentiments of contemptuous pity to which Englishmen are possibly more prone.

In another place, he found the head wife of Shunghie, though perfectly blind, digging in the same manner, surrounded by her women, and apparently with as much ease as the rest. The offer of a hoe in exchange for her spatula was accepted with joy. The scene drew forth these reflections: “When we viewed the wife of one of the most military chiefs, possessing large territories, digging with a spatula for her subsistence, this sight kindled within us the best feelings of the human heart. If a woman of this character,[Pg 138] and blind, can thus labour with her servants, what will not this people rise to, if they can procure the means of improving their country, and of bettering their condition? Their temporal state must be improved by agriculture and the simple arts, in connexion with the introduction of Christianity, in order to give permanence and full influence to the gospel among them. Our God and Saviour, who is loving to every man, and whose tender mercies are over all his works, is now, blessed be his name, moving the hearts of his servants to send relief to the poor heathen, even to the very ends of the earth.”

The journal affords us repeated evidences of a phenomenon, which recent occurrences in India have at this moment deeply impressed on the heart of England,—one with which both divines and legislators ought to have been acquainted (for it is not obscurely referred to in the word of God), but which a foolish and spurious benevolence has led many to deny—namely, that the most Satanic ferocity frequently lurks under gentle manners, and is even to be found in connexion with the warmest natural affection. Nothing, for instance, can be more affecting than the meeting of Tooi and his sister, after the absence of the former in England. Tooi himself anticipated a scene, and half ashamed, when he saw his sister at a distance, tried to avoid the interview in public, and requested Mr. Marsden to order off the canoe in which they were approaching. But her love could not be restrained; in an instant she sprang into the boat, fell on her knees, and clung to Tooi. He saluted her in return; when she gave vent to her feelings in tears and loud lamentations, which she continued for about an hour. “Tooi conducted himself with great pro[Pg 139]priety, suppressing all his wild feelings, and at the same time treating his sister with all the soft and tender feelings of nature. I could not but view his conduct with admiration.” When Tooi was in England, he had been taught to read and write, and instructed in the doctrines of Christianity; and he and his companion Teterree were general favourites, from their gentle manners and quick intelligence. They were one day taken to St. Paul’s by Mr. Nicholas, who naturally supposed they would be lost in astonishment at the grandeur of the building, but they expressed neither surprise nor pleasure; on which that gentleman makes this just remark; “It is only things of common occurrence, I suspect, that strike the mind of a savage. The faculties must be cultivated to fit them for the enjoyment of the beautiful or the sublime.” One thing, however, did strike them, and caused no small excitement. In walking up Fleet-street, they suddenly stopped before a hair-dresser’s shop, in the window of which were some female busts. They screamed out “Wyenee! Wyenee!” (Women! Women!) taking them for dried heads of the human subject. “I took some pains,” adds their kind conductor, “to beat this notion out of them, lest they should tell their countrymen on their return that Europeans preserved human heads as well as New Zealanders.”

These bursts of feeling were, it seems, quite natural; intense sorrow or savage exultation, the extremes of tenderness and of brutality, were indulged by turns, without any suspicion on their part of insincerity in either. Immediately after, Mr. Marsden mentions that he passed a canoe in which he recognised an old acquaintance, Hooratookie, the first New Zealander[Pg 140] introduced into civil society—Governor King having once entertained him with great kindness. Hooratookie was grateful; spoke of the governor’s daughter, then a child, with unfeigned regard, calling her by her Christian name, Maria. But looking into his large war-canoe, capable of holding from sixty to eighty men, with provisions, Mr. Marsden observed on the stern the dried head of a chief. “The face was as natural as life, the hair was long, and every lock combed straight, and the whole brought up to the crown, tied in a knot, and ornamented with feathers, according to the custom of the chiefs when in full dress. It was placed there as an incentive to revenge. It is possible the death of this chief may be revenged by his children’s children; hence the foundation is laid for new acts of cruelty and blood from generation to generation.”

Mr. Marsden’s fame now preceded him, and wherever he went, he was received not with rude hospitality, but with courteous respect. One chieftain offered up an ovation and prayer on their arrival. “He invoked the heavens above and the earth beneath to render our visit advantageous to his people, and agreeable to us, and that no harm may happen to us, whom he esteemed as the gods of another country. We heard the profane adulations with silent grief, and could not but wish most ardently for the light of Divine truth to shine on such a dark and superstitious mind.” Yet this man was a ferocious cannibal; and when Mr. Marsden expressed his anxiety for the safety of the missionaries after he should have left them, he was calmed by the assurance that, as we had done them no harm, they had no satisfaction to demand, “and that as for eating us, the flesh of a New Zealander was[Pg 141] sweeter than that of an European, in consequence of the white people eating so much salt.” From this the conversation turned to that of eating human flesh, which they defended with arguments which to them appeared, no doubt, perfectly conclusive. They alleged that fishes, animals, and birds, preyed upon each other; and that one god would devour another god, therefore there was in nature sufficient warrant for the practice. Shunghie explained how it was the gods preyed on each other, “and that when he was to the southward, and had killed a number of people and was afraid of their god, he caught their god, being a reptile, and ate part of it, and reserved the remainder for his friends.”

Shunghie, the greatest of New Zealand warriors, was at the same time a striking instance of that union of gentleness and ferocity which characterized this people. To the missionaries his kindness was always great, and his respect for Mr. Marsden knew no bounds. An instance of his good feeling may here be noticed. In the beginning of 1817, a naval expedition, under his command, sailed from the Bay of Islands. It consisted of thirty canoes, and about eight hundred men. Its object was to obtain peace with his enemies at the North Cape. The chief took an affectionate leave of the settlers, and told them that if he fell they must be kind to his children; and if he survived, he would take care of their families when they should die. The expedition returned, however, in about a fortnight, his people having quarrelled with those of Wangaroa, into which place they had put for refreshment; and being afraid, he said, that the Wangaroa people would attack the settlers in his absence, he, for the present, abandoned the expedition.

[Pg 142]Shunghie was again preparing for war when Mr. Marsden paid his second visit to New Zealand; his army, to the number of several thousand men, were already assembled; his war-canoes were ready, and all his preparations complete; yet in deference to the remonstrances of Mr. Marsden, he again abandoned his scheme of conquest or revenge, and dismissed his followers.

Shunghie paid a visit to England about the year 1820. His majestic person, graceful manners, and gentle yet manly disposition were much admired. He was one of Nature’s nobles; what might not be expected from such a man when he returned home again? George the Fourth invited him to Carlton Palace, and received him with marked attention, presenting him with some military accoutrements and costly fire-arms. Yet the heart of a savage never ceased to beat beneath this polished exterior, while his pride was fanned to madness by the consideration he received in England. “There is,” he exclaimed, “but one king in England; there shall be only one king in New Zealand.” Returning by way of Sydney he there happened to meet with Inacki, another chief, with whom he had an ancient feud. He told him that when they got back to New Zealand he would fight him. Inacki accepted the challenge, and Shunghie accordingly assembled, on his return to New Zealand, no fewer than two thousand men to attack Inacki. The latter was prepared to receive him, and for some time the event of the battle that ensued was doubtful. At length Shunghie, who had the greatest number of muskets, and who had arranged his men in the form called, in Roman tactics, the cuneus, or wedge, placing himself at the apex and directing those behind him to[Pg 143] wheel round the enemy, from the right and left, or to fall back into their original position as opportunity offered, shot Inacki. The savage Shunghie immediately sprang forward, scooped out the eye of the dying man with his knife, and swallowed it; and then, holding his hands to his throat, into which he had plunged his knife, and from which the blood flowed copiously, drank as much of the horrid beverage as the two hands could hold. Amongst the horrible superstitions of the Maories, one was that the eye of a victim thus devoured became a star in the firmament, and thus the ferocious Shunghie sought for honour and immortality. With the sword which he had received as a present from King George in England, he immediately cut off the heads of sixteen of his captives in cold blood; this was done to appease the spirit of his son-in-law, who had fallen in battle. In this battle, Shunghie and his tribe were armed with muskets, his opponents only with the native weapons, the club and spear. His victory, therefore, was an easy one, but his revenge was cruel. A New Zealand traveller, who visited the spot in 1844, says: “The bones of two thousand men still lie whitening on the plain, and the ovens remain in which the flesh of the slaughtered was cooked for the horrible repasts of the victorious party, and yet so numerous were the slaves taken prisoners that the Nga-Puis (the tribe of which Shunghie was the head) killed many of them on their way to the Bay of Islands merely to get rid of them.”[I] Such was the gentle Shunghie when his viler nature was let loose—a frightful specimen of human nature, varnished by education, but unvisited by the grace of God. We [Pg 144]turn aside for a moment to describe a scene in bright contrast with these revolting details. Amongst the few who escaped the general slaughter was Koromona, a chief who became blind soon afterwards, but hearing archdeacon W. Williams preach at Matamata, was converted. “For the last four years,” says the traveller above mentioned, “Koromona has been a native teacher, and may be seen every sabbath day with his class instructing them in the truths of the Scripture with an earnestness which is truly admirable; he is now about to start to preach Christianity to a tribe which has not yet received it. His memory is wonderful; he knows the whole of the church service by heart, and repeats hymns and many long chapters verbatim.” Thus the gospel won its victorious way, and proved itself triumphant over hearts no less depraved and passions no less degraded than those of Shunghie himself. No earthly power could have effected such a change; it was wrought by that “gospel” which is truly “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”

Amidst such scenes the missionaries dwelt in peace. War, and its inseparable and more hideous companion, cannibalism, showed themselves at their gates, but were not allowed to hurt them. Under the good providence of God, their security was owing, in a great measure, to the prudence and courage with which Mr. Marsden planned and carried out his projects. Himself a stranger to fear, he infused courage into those around him, and both he and they felt secure under the shield and buckler of the Almighty. No doubt the fearlessness of Mr. Marsden won the admiration of these savages and contributed not a little to his safety. His journal abounds in instances such as[Pg 145] that which follows. The scene is in a Maori village, and the writer is surrounded with cannibals. “After conversing on several subjects, we had supper, sung a hymn, and then committed ourselves to the Angel of the everlasting covenant, and so lay down to rest; a number of the natives lay around the hut and some within. I slept well until daybreak, being weary with walking.”

He appears to have arrived at home, after this second visit to New Zealand, towards the close of November, 1819. In February, 1820, he was once more on his way back to New Zealand. His letters bear ample testimony to a fact which all who were acquainted with him in private life observed, that his heart was full of affection, and that his home was the scene of his greatest happiness. He had not returned, it is true, to be greeted with public honours; on the contrary, he was still a marked man. The governor and many of the leading men in the colony were prejudiced against him. We believe it is to this period of his life that an anecdote which we give on the best possible authority belongs. The governor had consented to his recent visit to New Zealand with reluctance, and had limited the period of his absence with military precision, threatening at the same time to deprive him of his chaplaincy unless he returned within the given time. The last day arrived, and the expected vessel was not in sight. The governor repeated his determination to those around him, and Mr. Marsden’s friends were filled with anxiety, and his wife and family at length gave up all hope. Towards evening the long-wished-for sail appeared in the offing, and at eight o’clock in the evening Mr. Marsden quietly walked into the governor’s drawing-room with the[Pg 146] laconic and yet respectful address, “Sir, I am here to report myself.” But within the bosom of his family all was peace, and his presence shed light and joy on everything around him. His circumstances were prosperous—for his farm, which was almost entirely committed to Mrs. Marsden’s care, was now a source of considerable income; his children were growing up to manhood under their parents’ roof; his circle of friends and visitors was large, for there were no bounds to his simple hospitality; and the clergy of the colony, men like minded with himself, had now begun to regard him not only with affection, but with the reverence which belongs to years and wisdom and wide experience.

Yet at the call of duty this veteran was ready, on the shortest notice, to resume a life of such toil and hardship as nothing could have rendered welcome, its novelty once over, but motives the most solemn and commanding. H.M.S. Dromedary, Captain Skinner, was directed by government to proceed from Sydney to the Bay of Islands to receive a cargo of New Zealand timber for trial in the dockyards of England; and Sir Byam Martin, controller of the navy, knowing something of the energy of Mr. Marsden’s character, and his great acquaintance with New Zealand, requested that he would accompany the Dromedary, which was joined by the Coromandel, in order to facilitate the object of their visit. With this request he felt it his duty to comply. He arrived in New Zealand on the 20th of February, and embarked on board the Dromedary to return on the 25th of November. Thus nearly the whole year was given to the service of New Zealand.

The time was not lost. On his arrival, a difficulty[Pg 147] occurred which he only could have set at rest. The natives had come to the determination to exchange nothing, nor to do any kind of work, except for muskets and powder. His first business was to assemble the few European settlers, the advanced guard of that mighty band of European colonists which was soon to follow, and to persuade them not on any account to supply the natives with these weapons of war, in their hands so sure a source of mischief. With regard to the duty of the missionaries there could be no doubt; and this he explained to all the powerful chiefs. They had come among them to preach the gospel of peace, how then could they be expected to furnish the means and implements of destruction? In writing to the Missionary Society at home he says, and he must have written such a sentence with an aching heart, “I think it much more to the honour of religion and the good of New Zealand even to give up the mission for the present, than to trade with the natives in those articles.”

After a short time spent in the Bay of Islands, at the mission, he proceeded, sometimes in company with Europeans, but for the most part alone, upon a tour of many hundred miles through regions yet untrodden by the foot of civilized men, mingling with the native tribes, accompanying them in their wanderings from place to place, teaching the first lessons of civilization and gospel truth, and receiving everywhere from these savages the kindest attention and the most hospitable welcome in return.

On their way to Tourangha, he writes, under the date of June 20: “The day was far spent when we reached the plain. We walked on till the sun was nearly set, when we stopped and prepared for the night.[Pg 148] The servants, who had the provisions to carry, were very tired. There were no huts on the plain, nor any inhabitants, and we were therefore compelled to take up our lodging in the open air. I was very weary, having had no rest the preceding night; and having come a long day’s journey, so that I felt that rest would be very acceptable, even on a heap of fern or anything else.

“The peculiar scene that surrounded me, furnished the mind with new matter for contemplation on the works and ways of God. The mystery of his providence, and the still greater mystery of his grace, were all unsearchable to me. I had come from a distant country, and was then at the ends of the earth, a solitary individual, resting on an extensive wild, upon which no civilized foot had ever before trodden. My companions were poor savages, who nevertheless vied with each other in their attentions to me. I could not but feel attached to them. What would I have given to have had the book of life opened, which was yet a sealed book to them,—to have shown them that God who made them, and to have led them to Calvary’s mount, that they may see the Redeemer who had shed his precious blood for the redemption of the world, and was there set up as an ensign for the nations. But it was not in my power to take the veil from their hearts, I could only pray for them, and entreat the Father of mercies to visit them with his salvation. I felt very grateful that a Divine revelation had been granted to me; that I knew the Son of God had come, and believed that he had made a full and sufficient sacrifice or atonement for the sins of a guilty world. With compassionate feelings for my companions, under a grateful sense of[Pg 149] my own mercies, I lay down to rest, free from all fear of danger.”

It was during this tour that the following letter was addressed to the lady of his excellent friend Dr. Mason Good. It is long, but the reader will scarcely wish that it had been shorter. Let it stand on record as an evidence of the power of true religion in maintaining amidst the rudest scenes, and the rough warfare of an adventurous life, all the gentleness and affection of the most refined and polished society of a Christian land.

The immediate object of his visit being accomplished, he returned to Sydney, where a strange reception awaited him. Governor Macquarie had sent to Lord Bathurst a despatch in answer to the statements of the senior chaplain, already noticed, in which he brought heavy charges against the latter, which deeply affected his character, not only as a magistrate, but as a Christian man and a minister. The office of a magistrate he had been compelled to undertake in common with the other clergy of the colony, who were all included in the commission of the peace. For this there was no justification except hard necessity. Mr. Marsden, however, had long been weary of the irksome task, and had once and again requested the governor to accept his resignation. This the governor had expressly declined to do, on the ground that “his services as a magistrate were too beneficial to the public;” but in fact, it would seem, only that he might have the opportunity of inflicting upon him the annoyance of a formal dismissal, which was shortly afterwards notified in the “Sydney Gazette.”

Lord Bathurst, in consequence of the governor’s despatch, determined upon a step which gave great satisfaction to Mr. Marsden’s friends at home, and sent out a commissioner to investigate upon the spot[Pg 153] the truth of these and various other matters affecting the state of the colony, which had now obtained public notoriety, and had already engaged the attention of the British parliament; and Commissioner Bigge arrived during Mr. Marsden’s absence to manage the inquiry. On his return we find him seeking a public and searching examination of his whole conduct. Addressing a letter to the commissioner, he says: “I am happy to meet every charge that can be brought against me. I have no wish to do more than set my character right in the opinion of his Majesty’s government and in that of the Christian world; and I am unfeignedly thankful to you for the fair opportunity you afford me to justify my public and private conduct.”

Among the many charges brought before the commission of inquiry was that already preferred against Mr. Marsden by the governor in his despatch to Lord Bathurst, namely, that he had been guilty of extraordinary severity as a magistrate. Another, scarcely consistent with the first, was, that more profligacy and depravity were to be found amongst the convicts of Paramatta than in any other district, and that this was owing to the neglect of the senior chaplain. Perhaps it would have been impossible to have brought forward any two charges of a more painful nature. Happily the first was easily disproved, or rather it fell at once to the ground for want of proof. The second was the more cruel, because, while the facts bore out the statement, Mr. Marsden was the only public man in the colony who was not guilty, by his silence at least, to some extent of the iniquities which the governor affected to deplore. Paramatta was, in fact, the receptacle of the most hardened and depraved[Pg 154] of the convict class; it received the sweepings of the jails in every district. There were nearly two hundred women and seven hundred male convicts there, while the factory was so small as not to be able to contain more than sixty women, and the remainder were obliged to find lodging for themselves or to sleep in the open fields. This was Mr. Marsden’s answer to the commissioner; it was a repetition of the remonstrance which he alone had had the courage, two years before, to present to the governor, and then to remit home to England. Thus he found himself arraigned as the cause of those very evils—evils, too, lying at his own door—which he had obtained so much obloquy for attempting to remove. The reflection is a trite one, but it will bear to be repeated, that the Christian philanthropist must look for his recompense in heaven, and not from man. “If when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God, for even hereunto were ye called.” A third charge was that he had squandered public money in building the female orphan house. He showed, however, on his defence, that the lieutenant-governor, judge-advocate, and others, who formed the committee, had examined the accounts and passed them every quarter, and that the governor had himself afterwards approved of them, and published them in the “Sydney Gazette” three years before the charge was made. It now appeared further that Mr. Marsden had advanced largely to the institution; to the amount indeed of more than eight hundred pounds, for the mere cost of the building; “and this,” he says, “must have been known to the governor, as I was obliged to apply to him for repayment for some of these sums, and received an answer that he could not assist me.”

[Pg 155]Such are some of the trials which they must learn to encounter who would be brave and fearless soldiers of the cross. They must expect to have their motives censured, their tempers blamed, their actions misconstrued, sometimes by men as good, or, at least, as honest as themselves. Governor Macquarie left the impression of his genius upon the youthful institutions of Australia, where his memory is still honoured as that of a great man; yet his conduct to Mr. Marsden was oppressive and unjust. It is consoling to know that there had been nothing in the personal conduct of the latter unworthy of his sacred calling. The commissioner, in the conclusion of the investigation, inserts, for Mr. Marsden’s information, the governor’s testimonial of his character, which, considering the charges brought against him, certainly does go far to prove that misapprehension and exasperated feelings had betrayed his excellency into a warmth and precipitancy of which, in moments of less irritation, he felt ashamed. “The governor admits that Mr. Marsden’s manner to him has been constantly civil and accommodating, and that nothing in his manner could provoke the governor’s warmth. The governor admits his qualifications, his activity, and his unremitting vigilance as a magistrate, and in society his cheerful disposition and readiness to please.”

While this inquiry was pending at Sydney, the governor addressed a letter to Lord Sidmouth, and published it in England. It was a defence of his own line of policy against various attacks which had been made against it in the House of Commons by the Hon. H. Grey Bennett and others. In the course of his defence, the governor not only ridiculed Mr. Marsden’s letter on the necessity of a female factory, and[Pg 156] his account of the melancholy condition of the convict women, but charges him with being himself accustomed to traffic in spirituous liquors, and in consequence of being displeased at having so many public-houses in his neighbourhood.

Malicious, and absurd as the accusation was, carrying with it its own refutation, it found some who were weak or wicked enough to believe, or however to repeat it. It was revived in the colony, and republished in one of the Sydney newspapers after Mr. Marsden’s death. Such is the tenacity of slander. “Only throw mud enough,” says the eloquent Mr. Burke, “and some of it will be sure to stick.” Mr. Marsden felt his character so seriously compromised that he wrote home to the minister in self-defence, and also addressed a statement of the case to the new governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane. After showing the absurdity, and indeed the impossibility, of the charge, since, in the first place, the governor himself had granted a monopoly to certain contractors to purchase and land all spirits brought to the colony, and that in the second he had no licence, he adds: “Such is the watchful eye that was kept upon my whole conduct by night and by day, if I had been guilty of that or any other impropriety, it would have been impossible for me to have escaped detection.” So far as any pretence of truth could have been urged in support of this foul slander, namely that “he kept a public-house for the sale of ardent spirits, selling them in any quantity from a pint to a puncheon,” it may be stated in his own words: “In the infancy of the colony, previously to my arrival, barter was established among all classes from the governor downwards. As there was neither beer nor milk, tea nor sugar, to be purchased at any price,[Pg 157] wine and spirits became the medium of exchange. As the colony progressively advanced in agriculture, commerce, and wealth, barter gradually decreased, and money transactions became more general. I can affirm that for the last eighteen years I have not had in my possession as much spirits as would allow my servants half a pint a head per week. And at no period of my residence did I ever purchase spirits for sale.”[J]

These were not the only troubles through which he was called to pass. But enough has been said both to explain the difficulties in which Mr. Marsden was placed and to clear his character from the vile aspersions cast upon it. It is with pleasure that we turn from these false and disgraceful charges to follow him in those Christian and philanthropic pursuits which have given splendour to his name.

On the arrival of Sir Thomas Brisbane, in 1821, to assume the government of New South Wales, Mr. Marsden immediately waited upon him, when he received the assurance of his countenance and support, not only as a colonial chaplain, but as the representative of the great missionary work going forward in New Zealand. Such encouragement was opportune; he thanked God and took courage; for the difficulties were great, and from time to time grievous disappointments and vexations had occurred. It was about this time that the seminary at Paramatta, for the education of New Zealanders, was abandoned. It had its origin with Mr. Marsden, and was conducted for some time in his own house. It was indeed one of his most favourite plans, and its failure was a severe disappointment. It was found, however, that the change [Pg 158]of habits and of climate was injurious to the health of the New Zealanders, while the results were not always such as might have been desired. But nothing could damp his ardent zeal, or quench his spirit of enterprise. “I see,” he says, writing to his friends at home, “the way preparing for the spread of the gospel. I feel the fullest conviction that the South Sea Islands will now receive the blessing of civilization and the gospel. The work is great, and many difficulties may oppose it. The foundation is now firmly laid, and no power on earth can overturn it. To impart these blessings to the New Zealanders is an object worthy of the British nation: a more noble undertaking could not be suggested to the Christian world.” This at least was not the mere declamation of the platform, but the deliberate expression of the views of one who had toiled and suffered in the cause for twenty years, and had scarcely been cheered, at present, with the sight of a single New Zealand convert. “Here,” at least, “is the patience of the saints.”

His home duties were not neglected; nor was his the easy philanthropy which overlooks the humble claims of the rustic flock or obscure parish, while it stalks abroad on some heroic enterprise which may feed the vanity, while it satisfies the conscience, of the actor. Through his exertions Paramatta had now its association in behalf of the Bible Society, which already collected funds for the Parent Society in England. An early report from this institution contains a remarkable account of his visits to the sick bed of a young woman, whose experience beautifully illustrates the text, that the Scripture “is able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”[Pg 159] It brings the writer also before us incidentally as a spiritual pastor and an enlightened minister of Christ.

“Some time ago,” says Mr. Marsden, “I was called on to visit a young woman, about twenty years of age, in one of our districts, who was extremely ill, and who wished very much to see me before she died. On my arrival at her father’s house, I found her heavily afflicted, and death appeared to be at no great distance. I sat by her bedside with the Bible in my hand; expecting to find her, as I have but too often found others in similar circumstances, ignorant of the first principles of religion.

“I read a portion of this sacred book to her, and was most agreeably surprised to find that she not only understood the letter but the spirit of the Scriptures.

“I asked her father how she became so well acquainted with the Scriptures: he said he did not know—she was always reading her Bible at every opportunity, and sometimes sat up whole nights for that purpose. He observed, she was a very dutiful daughter: he had a large family, and she, being the eldest, and very industrious, was of great service to her mother and the younger branches of the family; the only indulgence which she desired was to be allowed to read the Bible when her work was done; but he could not account for her attachment to it; and it seemed very strange to him that she should attend to it so much. I asked him if she was in the habit of going to church, as I did not personally know her. He said she went sometimes, but was generally prevented, from the distance and the large family which she had to attend to.

“This young woman may be said to have obtained her religion wholly from the Bible. None of the family knew anything of the Bible but herself. I[Pg 160] visited her during the whole of her sickness, from the time she sent for me, until she fell asleep in Jesus. Her faith was simple, her views of the way of salvation clear. She gave me many proofs of this, in the various conversations which I had with her during her sickness. The Bible was more precious to her than gold; she had found it, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, her counsellor and her guide, and by it she had been brought to a knowledge of the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he had sent; and hereby she was filled with a hope full of immortality. Previously to her last sickness, she had enjoyed good health: it was in the prime of youth and vigour that she had read her Bible, and loved it, so that she had not to seek God, for the first time, in this trying moment; but found him a present help in sickness and in the approach of death. The Bible had testified of Christ to her: she had found eternal life revealed therein; and the Divine promises were both great and precious to her soul.”

Such instances of faith, and of the happy effects of a simple reliance upon the atonement, were at that time of rare occurrence in the colony. Instances of conversion simply from the reading of the Scriptures are not perhaps so rare as we generally suppose. Lieutenant Sadleir, who himself resided at Paramatta, has remarked upon this occurrence: “It is gratifying to the reflecting mind to observe such glimmerings of light in the midst of so much darkness. Although found in obscurity and in the cottage of the peasant, it proved that there were some who had not bowed the knee to the Baal of universal licentiousness.”

Mr. Marsden’s anxiety for the female convicts was not to be abated by ridicule or opposition. We find[Pg 161] him, in August, 1822, addressing a letter to Dr. Douglas, the police magistrate of Paramatta, on their behalf. Some of the sentiments are beautifully touching. The substance of the plea on their behalf is “that these poor creatures, who are confined in the penitentiary, and who have committed no offence in these settlements, be allowed the privilege of attending at least once on the sabbath day on public worship.” The request was surely reasonable, and in urging it he rises to a pathetic eloquence: “There is no nation under the heavens in whose bosom the wretched and unfortunate finds so warm a reception as in our own. The unhappy situation of the female convicts during their confinement in the different jails in the empire interests the best feelings of the human heart. They are instructed by the counsels of the wise, consoled by the prayers of the pious, softened by the tears of the compassionate, and relieved by the alms of the benevolent. The noble senator does not pass over their crimes and their punishments unnoticed; he is anxious for the prevention of the former, and the mitigation of the latter; nor does the wise politician consider them beneath his care.” He then speaks with natural exultation of “the watchful eye with which the British government provides for their wants and conveniences during their voyage to New South Wales, even more liberally than for the brave soldiers and sailors who have fought the battles of their country, and never violated its laws;” and then follows a sentence which leaves us uncertain whether more to admire his patriotism or the gentleness of his nature and the warmth of his heart:

“This apparently singular conduct may seem as if the British government wished to encourage crime[Pg 162] and afterwards reward it; but upon a nearer view this principle of action will be found to spring spontaneously from virtue, from that inherent, laudable, Christian compassion and anxiety, which the father of the prodigal felt for his lost son, which kept alive the spark of hope that he might one day return to his father’s house and be happy. This parable of our blessed Saviour’s most beautifully exhibits the character of the British nation towards her prodigal sons and daughters, and is more honourable to her than all the victories she has achieved by sea and land.”

The welfare of the female convict population lay near to Mr. Marsden’s heart; scarcely his beloved New Zealanders and their missions engaged more of his affection. His plans for the improvement of their temporal condition, and his incessant labours for their spiritual welfare, occupied no small portion of his time and thoughts; and there is good reason to believe that his labours amongst these outcasts were not “in vain in the Lord.” Standing, as we should have thought, himself in need of encouragement, he stimulated the languid zeal of others. Mrs. Fry and other philanthropists were now engaged in their great work of amending our prison discipline at home. We have inserted a letter from that excellent lady to Mr. Marsden. His answer to it must have cheered her spirits amidst the many disheartening toils to which she was exposed.

“The Wellington had just arrived when,” he says, “I went on board, and was highly gratified with the order which appears to have been maintained in that vessel. I could not have conceived that any ship could have been fitted up to have afforded such accommodation to the unfortunate female exiles as the Wel[Pg 163]lington was. All the women looked clean, healthy, and well. They had not that low, vicious, squalid, dirty look which the women at former periods have had when they first arrived. I believe there has been very great attention paid by the master and surgeon to their morals and comfort, in every possible way. The very sight of the arrangements of the vessel showed that the humane and benevolent wishes of the Christian world had been carried into effect, and proved beyond all contradiction that order and morality can be maintained upon so long a voyage in a female convict ship.... The present inquiry into the state of this colony, before the committee of the House of Commons, will greatly benefit this country. I can speak from painful experience that for the last twenty-six years, it has been the most immoral, wretched society in all the Christian world. Those who are intimate with the miseries and vices of large jails alone can form any idea of the colony of New South Wales. I know what Newgate was when I was in London, in the years 1808 and 1809. I was then in the habit of seeing that miserable abode of vice and woe. What has since been done in Newgate may be done elsewhere, if suitable means are adopted by those in authority, seconded by individual exertions; much might be done in these colonies towards restoring the poor exiles to society, with the countenance and support of the government. Great evils are not removed without great difficulties. When I visited the Wellington, I saw much had been done in England, and more than I could have credited, had I not been an eye witness of the situation of the females.”

Sir Thomas Brisbane, the new governor, was not[Pg 164] slow to perceive the worth of services such as those which Mr. Marsden had rendered to the colony, and pressed him to accept once more the office of a magistrate. In reference to this, “I wish,” says Mr. Marsden, in a letter to Dr. Mason Good, “to avoid the office if I can; but I fear it will not be in my power, without giving offence. The judges as well as the public and the magistrates have urged me to take the bench at the present time.” In the same letter, he adds: “I feel happy that I have stood firm against all calumnies and reproaches, and have been the instrument of bringing to light the abominations that have been committed here: and some of the evils are already remedied.” The friends of religion and virtue in England could not fail to sympathize with him, being well assured that substantially he was fighting the cause of true piety and equal justice, against profligacy and oppression. Mr. Wilberforce wrote to him in the year 1823, with his usual warm affection:—

The report of Commissioner Bigge was made public soon afterwards; and with it the clouds which had gathered so long around the chaplain of Paramatta were at last dispersed. He was too prominent a mark not to be again assailed. Always in the front of the battle when the oppressed required protection, or evil doers in high positions his bold assaults, it was not in the nature of things that he should lead a very quiet life. His calling was peculiar; so were his talents; and the latter were admirably fitted for the former. But for the present his triumph was complete, and the government at home appreciated his faithful service. The document which follows requires no further comment. It was not received till some time had elapsed, but we insert it here as a fitting conclusion to the chapter:—

FOOTNOTES:

[I] Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. By George French Angas, London, 1847.

[J] Rations of spirits, as in the navy, would seem at this time to have been regularly served out to the servants and labourers in the colony.

CHAPTER IX.

In July, 1823, we find Mr. Marsden again taking ship and embarking for New Zealand; his intention being to visit the stations of the Church Missionary Society, and to arrange its affairs. Since his last visit fresh causes for anxiety had appeared. In consequence of Shunghie’s misconduct, the natives were now alienated from the missionaries; they had become indifferent to education and agricultural improvements; and the gospel, it was too evident, had made little progress hitherto. Shunghie declared that as to himself, “he wanted his children to learn to fight and not to read.” The Maories about the settlement insisted upon being paid for their services in fire-arms and ammunition. “Since Shunghie’s return,” writes one of the missionaries, “the natives, one and all, have treated us with contempt. They are almost past bearing; coming into our houses when they please, demanding food, thieving whatever they can lay their hands on, breaking down our garden fences, stripping the ship’s boats of everything they can. They seem, in fact, ripe for any mischief; had Mr. Marsden himself been amongst us, much as he deserves their esteem, I believe he would not escape without insult; but the Lord is a very present help in time of trouble.” Amongst the missionaries themselves certain evils had appeared, the growth of a secular and commercial spirit, which had[Pg 168] injured their cause, and threatened to frustrate the great end for which the mission was projected. Mr. Marsden heard of these untoward events, and hastened his departure, full of anxiety, but not abating one jot of his confidence in the final triumph of God’s cause. What his feelings were his own journal testifies:—

He was accompanied on his voyage by the Reverend Henry Williams and his family, who now went out to strengthen the New Zealand mission, of which he soon became one of the most effective leaders. One of Bishop Selwyn’s first steps when he was appointed bishop of New Zealand, was to make Mr. Henry Williams one of his archdeacons, and since then he has[Pg 169] been designated to a New Zealand bishopric in a district inhabited exclusively by Christianized Maories. Could Mr. Marsden have foreseen the course which awaited his companion, how would his soul have been cheered! but it was for him to sow in tears, and for others to reap in joy. The field was not yet ripe for the harvest; other men laboured, who now sleep in the dust, and we of this generation have entered into their labours. Mr. Marsden was not mistaken in his estimate of his new companion. Indeed he appears to have been very seldom mistaken in the judgments he formed about other men. “I think,” he notes, “that Mr. Williams and his family will prove a great blessing to the Society. I hope he will be able to correct and remedy, in time, many evils that have existed, and also to set an example to the rest what they as missionaries should do.”

This was his fourth visit to New Zealand, and though in some respects it was painful, yet in others there was ground for joy. The cloud which the prophet saw from Carmel, though no greater than a man’s hand, foretold abundance of rain; and so now too, at length, after nine years’ toil, a few hopeful symptoms appeared amongst the Maories. Their anxious visitor observed with much pleasure, he says, that since his last visit, the natives in general were much improved in their appearance and manners; and now for the first time he heard them, with strange delight, sing some hymns and repeat some prayers in their own language. This convinced him that, notwithstanding the misconduct of a few of the Europeans, the work was gradually going on, and the way preparing for the blessings of the gospel. “I have no[Pg 170] doubt that the greatest difficulties are now over, and that God will either incline the hearts of those who are now in New Zealand, to devote themselves to their work, or he will find other instruments to do his work.”

Yet he had a painful duty to discharge. Firm as he was and lion-hearted when danger was to be met, his nature was very gentle, and his affections both deep and warm; and he had now to rebuke some of the missionaries whom he loved as his own soul, and even to dismiss one of them. Of those whom he had been obliged to censure, he writes thus:—“They expressed their regret for the past, and a determination to act in a different way for the future. Some, I have no doubt, will retrace their steps, and will be more cautious and circumspect, but I have not the same confidence in all. Some express sorrow, but I fear not that which worketh repentance.” Again he remarks: “Missionary work is very hard work, unless the heart is fully engaged in it. No consideration can induce a man to do habitually what he has a habitual aversion to. The sooner such a one leaves the work, the better it will be for himself and the mission.” But though compelled to blame, he did not forget to sympathize. “The present missionaries, though some of them have erred greatly from the right way, yet have all had their trials and troubles. Some allowance must be made for their peculiar situation, and their want of Christian society, and of the public ordinances of religion.”

Several chiefs, among whom was Tooi, warmly took up the cause of the missionary who had been dismissed. The conversation which followed is a beautiful illustration of the too much forgotten Scripture which tells[Pg 171] us that “a soft answer turneth away wrath,” while at the same time it presents an interesting view of the Maori mind and character at this critical period of their national history.

The conduct of the natives confirmed the impression which Mr. Marsden had previously formed, and which their subsequent history down to the present day entirely sustains, that they are a noble race of men, of considerable mental capacity, of great perseverance and enterprise, who never lose sight of an object upon which they have once set their minds; powerful reasoners upon any subject that has come within their knowledge; possessed of a quick perception and a natural sagacity, which enables them to form a just acquaintance with human nature as it presents itself before them. Who would not wish that they too may form a happy exception to the rule which seems in every land to condemn the native population to waste away before the advances of European enterprise? Who would not desire that the Maorie[Pg 173] tribes may long be a great and powerful nation, protected, but not oppressed by English rule?

Mr. Marsden now paid a visit at Wangaroa, to the Wesleyan missionary station there. Over the Wesleyan missions he had of course no control or oversight, such as that with which he was intrusted towards the missions of the London Missionary Society in the South Sea Islands. This, however, did not prevent his taking an affectionate interest in their affairs. He found Mr. Leigh, the founder of their mission, very ill, and invited him to return with him on a voyage of health and recreation to Port Jackson; and having taken leave of the Church Missionary brethren with solemn and affectionate counsels he embarked on the 6th of September, 1823, with feelings which he thus describes.

But his bright visions were overcast. Like the first and greatest of Christian missionaries, it was ordained that he, too, “should suffer shipwreck and be cast upon a desert island.” His own journal gives us the story of his danger and deliverance.

The shipwreck of the Brampton—for that was the vessel’s name—occurred on the 7th of September, and in consequence Mr. Marsden was detained in New Zealand until the 14th of November, when he returned home in the Dragon, and arrived at Sydney in the beginning of December, 1823. The interval was not lost; for he seems to have been one of those who gather up the fragments of time, and turn to the best account the idle hours and spare moments of life. He drew up some excellent rules for the guidance of the missionaries and Christian settlers in their intercourse with the shipping which now began to visit the Bay of Islands. He encouraged the erection of a school-house for the natives. “The foundation,” he says, “must be laid in the education of the rising generation. The children possess strong minds, are well-behaved and teachable. They are capable of learning anything we wish to teach them.” During his detention he also addressed a circular letter to the missionaries[Pg 178] respecting a grammar in the Maori or New Zealand language, pointing out the necessity of adopting some more systematic method both for its arrangement and pronunciation. This led to a new vocabulary of the native language, and in a short time to a new method of spelling. We have, of course, retained Mr. Marsden’s orthography of New Zealand names, but we may remark, by the way, it is very different from that which has been since introduced. Shunghie became E’Hongi; Kiddee Kiddee, Keri Keri; and so in other instances. But even Mr. Marsden, with all his sagacity, did not penetrate New Zealand’s future, nor foresee in how short a time the well-known and familiar sounds of English towns and villages would be transferred to that still savage island, superseding even in Maori lips their native designations. It seems probable that the New Zealand language may, in the course of another generation, come to be known only by the grammar which the missionaries compiled and the Scriptures which they have since translated. But whatever be its fate, it is in a high degree sonorous and expressive, and had it but an antique literature, a Tallessin or an Ossian, it could never perish. Without a literature of its own no spoken language can long endure against the assaults of that which is evidently destined to be the universal speech of trade and commerce, the English tongue. On the other hand the literature of a language, or even of a dialect, embalms it after it has ceased to be a spoken tongue even to the end of time.

And lastly, a political object occupied some of Mr. Marsden’s time and thoughts. The incessant and desolating wars which the native tribes waged against each other were, he saw, the great obstacle to the[Pg 179] progress of New Zealand. The missions were always insecure, for the country was always more or less disturbed. Civil war is, under all circumstances, the bane, and, if persisted in, the ruin of a country; add the ferocity of New Zealand warfare, its cannibalism and its undying spirit of revenge, and nothing more was wanted to degrade the finest country under heaven into a very pit of darkness. All this Mr. Marsden felt; he conceived that if he could succeed in establishing some one chief as supreme, a plan of government might be drawn up securing life and property throughout the island. He consulted Shunghie, Wyatto Riva, and other powerful chieftains. Shunghie’s ambitious spirit would have embraced the proposal, the condition being, of course, that he should be the sovereign; but the jealousy of the rest prevented anything like unanimity. Riva justly remarked that to have any superior would degrade them; yet all the chiefs appeared tired of war and the unsettled state consequent upon it. So the project failed.

At length he returned home, accompanied by six New Zealand youths, whose eagerness was such that they gladly promised to sleep upon the deck rather than miss the opportunity. Mr. Leigh, the Wesleyan missionary, was also his fellow voyager. Mr. Leigh’s opinion of Mr. Marsden and his labours is highly gratifying, and not the less so as coming from one who belonged to another Society. “The shipwreck,” he says, “which we have experienced will, I have no doubt, prove favourable to the reputation of the New Zealanders. For several days we were in their power, and they might have taken all that we had with the greatest ease; but instead of oppressing and robbing us, they actually sympathized with us in our trials and[Pg 180] afflictions. Mr. Marsden, myself, and Mrs. Leigh, were at a native village for several days and nights, without any food but what the natives brought us; what they had they gave us willingly, and said—‘Poor creatures! you have nothing to eat, and you are not accustomed to our kind of food.’ I shall never forget the sympathy and kindness of these poor heathens.

Within a few days of his return home, Mr. Marsden, the impression of his visit still fresh upon his mind, wrote the following interesting letter:—

CHAPTER X.

Scarcely had Mr. Marsden returned to Paramatta when we find him in correspondence with the new governor on the subject of the aborigines of Australia. They were already wasting away in the presence of the European colonists like snow before the sun. Their restless and wandering habits seemed to present insuperable difficulties, whether the object were to convert or merely to protect them. His memorandum to the governor, and subsequent correspondence with the Church Missionary Society, show his anxiety for their welfare and the largeness of his heart. Each new project, as it came before him, was welcomed with serious attention, while at the same time there was no fickleness, no relaxation of his efforts in his old engagements and pursuits. But he was not allowed to connect his name with the evangelization of these poor heathen. Various attempts have been made by different denominations to bring them into the fold of Christ, but hitherto with very small success. It seems, at length, as if Christians had acquiesced in the conclusion that their conversion is hopeless, that we can do nothing more than to throw over them the shield of the British government, and prevent their wholesale destruction by lawless “squatters” and “bush-rangers.” We shall return, however, to the subject hereafter.

[Pg 185]His interest in the mission to the South Sea Islands continued unabated. The London Missionary Society had deputed the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennett, Esq., to visit these missions, and bring home in person a report of all they might see upon the spot. On their voyage, they stayed awhile at Sydney, and Mr. Marsden addressed a letter to them, which shows his own zeal in the cause, and the painful apathy or profane contempt of others. Such memorials, in this day of comparative fervour, ought not to be forgotten. When a Livingstone returns home to receive a shower of honours from a grateful country let us not forget the venerable pioneers in the same missionary work, and the different treatment they experienced. The contrast will call forth emotions both of gratitude and of shame.

While thus engaged, he was still a faithful minister of the gospel in its richest consolations, and a bold opponent of vice. His position as a magistrate not only obliged him to reprove but to punish sin. The task was difficult, when the real offender, in too many cases, was not the wretched culprit at the bar of justice, but some rich and insolent delinquent, beyond the reach of the limited powers of a colonial magistrate. In consequence of Mr. Marsden’s fearless conduct in a case we shall not describe, he was at length formally dismissed from the magistracy. All that is necessary to be known, in order to vindicate his character, is contained in an extract of a letter written by himself[Pg 188] to Mr. Nicholson, dated Paramatta, 12th August, 1824:

He was still subject to the most annoying insults. Imputations, ludicrous from their absurdity and violence, were heaped upon him. In reading the libels which were published in the colony, and in England too, about this time, we should suppose that the man against whom they were aimed was some delinquent, notorious even in a penal settlement. He was openly accused of being “a man of the most vindictive spirit,”—“a turbulent and ambitious priest,”—a “cruel magistrate”—an “avaricious man.” These charges, amongst many more, were contained in a work in two volumes octavo, professing to give an account of Australasia, which reached a third edition, and to which the author’s name was attached. As if these were not sufficient to grind his reputation to the dust, further charges of hypocrisy and bigotry were thrown in. These last were easily repelled; to refute the others[Pg 189] was more difficult, inasmuch as facts were involved which it was necessary to clear up and place in a just light before the public. It might have seemed magnanimous to despise such assailants, and meet them with silent pity. And yet we doubt whether such magnanimity would have been wise, for with a blemished reputation his usefulness would have been at an end; since his accusers were not anonymous hirelings, but magistrates and men of high position in the colony.

He referred the matter to his friends at home, placing his character in their hands. He was willing to institute an action for libel, if this step were thought advisable; or else to lay a statement of his wrongs before the House of Commons; and he transmitted the manuscript of a pamphlet, in self-justification, to his friend Dr. Mason Good. It was accompanied with a letter, remarkable for the modest estimate of his own abilities, as well as for true Christian meekness: “I have requested our mutual friend, Baron Field, Esq., to show the documents to you, and to consult with you on the propriety of publishing them. I have much more confidence in your superior judgment than in my own.... Many hard contests,” he says, “I have had in this colony. But God has hitherto overruled all for good, and he will continue to do so. As a Christian I rejoice in having all manner of evil spoken of me by wicked men. As a member of society, it is my duty to support, by every lawful means, an upright character. The good of society calls upon me to do this, from the public situation I hold, as well as that gospel which I believe; on this principle I think it right to notice Mr. W.’s work. I leave it,” he adds, “to you and my other friends to publish what I have[Pg 190] written or not, as you may think proper, and with what alterations and arrangements you may think necessary. I do not know how to make a book, any more than a watch, but you have learned the trade completely; I therefore beg your assistance, for which I shall feel very grateful.” But even these anxieties could not engross his confidential correspondence. In the same letter we have pleasant mention of New Zealand and its missionaries:—“I have no doubt about New Zealand; we must pray much for them, and labour hard, and God will bless the labour of our hands.” Nor is science quite forgotten:—“I have sent you a small box of fossils and minerals, by Captain Dixon, of the Phœnix, from Point Dalrymple principally; the whole of them came from Van Diemen’s Land.”

Mr. Wilberforce and other friends of religion were consulted; and under their advice his pamphlet was published in London, though not till the year 1826. It is entitled, “An Answer to certain Calumnies, etc., by the Rev. Samuel Marsden, principal Chaplain to the colony of New South Wales.” It contains a temperate, and at the same time a conclusive answer, to all the charges made against him. To some of these we have already had occasion to refer; others have lost their interest. The charge of hypocrisy was chiefly grounded on the fact that a windmill, on Mr. Marsden’s property, had been seen at work on Sunday. But “the mill,” he says, “was not in my possession at that time, nor was I in New South Wales. I never heard of the circumstance taking place but once; and the commissioner of inquiry was the person who told me of it after my return from New Zealand. I expressed my regret to the commissioner that anything should have taken place, in my absence, which had[Pg 191] the appearance that I sanctioned the violation of the sabbath-day. As I was twelve hundred miles off at the time, it was out of my power to prevent what had happened; but I assured him it should not happen again, for the mill should be taken down, which was done.” How few, it is to be feared, would make such a sacrifice, simply to avoid the possibility of a return of the appearance of evil! The charge of bigotry arose out of his interference with Mr. Crook, a person in the colony who had formerly been intended for the South Sea mission. It was at the request of the missionaries themselves, that Mr. Marsden, as agent of their Society, had been led to interfere; but he was represented, in consequence, as “a persecutor of dissenters.” Messrs. Bennett and Tyerman were then in Australia; and in answer to Mr. Marsden’s request that “they would do him the favour to communicate to him their impartial opinion, how far he had in any way merited such an accusation, either as it respects Mr. C. or any other missionary belonging to the London Missionary Society,” he received a grateful acknowledgment of his services, which we are happy to insert:—

[Pg 193]The case of James Ring, we cannot pass unnoticed. It shows the cruelty with which Mr. Marsden’s reputation was assailed on the one hand, and his own firm and resolute bearing on the other. Ring was a convict, who for his general good conduct had been assigned as a domestic servant to Mr. Marsden. He was permitted by the latter, in accordance with the usual custom, to work occasionally at his own trade—that of a painter and glazier, on his own account, and as a reward for his good conduct. He was frequently employed in this way by the residents at Paramatta; amongst others by the chief magistrate himself. This man having been ill-treated and severely beaten by another servant, applied, with Mrs. Marsden’s approbation, to the magistrates of Paramatta for redress; instead of receiving which, he was charged by them with being illegally at large, and committed to the common jail.

Mr. Marsden was then absent on duty in the country: on appearing before the bench of magistrates upon his return home, he at once stated that he had given permission to Ring to work occasionally for himself, and that therefore if there was any blame it lay with him, and not the prisoner. The magistrates not only ordered Mr. Marsden to be fined two shillings and sixpence per day for each day his servant had been thus at large, under the assumed plea of his transgressing a general government order, but also ordered Ring to be remanded to jail and ironed; and he was subsequently worked in irons in a penal gang. “At this conviction there was no informer, nor evidence,” (we are now quoting Mr. Marsden’s words, from a statement which he made before a court of inquiry instituted by Lord Bathurst, the colonial minister at[Pg 194] home, to investigate the subject at Mr. Marsden’s request,) “but the bench convicted me on my own admission that I had granted indulgence to my servant to do jobs in the town. There were two convictions, the first was on the 17th of May, 1823. On the 23rd of the same month, without a hearing, or being present, without informer, evidence, or notice, on the same charge I was convicted in the penal sum of ten pounds. On the 7th of June, a convict constable entered my house with a warrant of execution, and levied the fine by distress and sale of my property.”

These convictions took place under an obsolete colonial regulation of 1802, made in the first instance by Governor King, to meet a temporary emergency; but virtually set aside by a general order of Governor Macquarie’s, of a much later date, granting the indulgence under certain regulations, with which Mr. Marsden had complied. Mr. Marsden says, in his official defence, that he “was the only person in the colony who was ever fined under such circumstances, since the first establishment of the colony, to the present time.” And he adds a statement which, had it not come down to us thus accredited under his own hand, would have seemed incredible, namely that “the two magistrates by whom the fines were inflicted, Dr.—— and Lieut.——, were doing, on that very day, the same thing for which they fined me and punished my servant, and I pointed that out to them at the time they were sitting on the bench, and which they could not deny.” Denial indeed was out of the question, since, says Mr. Marsden, “one of Dr.——’s convict servants, Henry Buckingham, by trade a tailor, was working for me, and had been so for [Pg 195]months. Lieut.—— at that very time also had two convict servants belonging to Dr. Harris, working for him at his own house.”

In vain did Mr. Marsden appeal to the governor; even he was afraid to breast the torrent, which for a time bore all before it. “He found no reason to interfere with the colonial law.” Mr. Marsden prayed him at least to bring the matter before a full bench of magistrates, in whose hands he would leave his character; this, too, the governor declined, whereupon as a last step, he laid the affair before the supreme court for its decision; prosecuting the magistrates, and obtaining a verdict for the amount of the fine so unjustly levied. They now affected to triumph in the small amount of the damages in which they were cast, “wishing,” he says, “to make the world believe that the injury I had sustained was proportionally small.” And thus even his forbearance and his Christian spirit in rendering good for evil, were turned against him; for he had instructed his solicitor expressly, not to insert in the indictment the count or charge of malice, but merely to sue for the recovery of the amount of the fine. He states the case thus in simple and forcible language. “I may here observe, the only error it appears I committed originally was in not prosecuting the magistrates for vindictive damages before the supreme court. Had I alleged malice, I must have obtained a verdict accordingly; but I sought for no vindictive damages; I sought redress no further than to set my character right with the public. To have done more than this would not have become me, according to my judgment, as a minister of the gospel, and I instructed my solicitor, Mr. Norton, merely to sue for the amount of the award which had been levied on my property[Pg 196] by warrant and distress of sale. The court gave me the amount I prosecuted for, with costs of suit, and with this I was perfectly satisfied.”

For two whole years this miserable affair lingered on. The unfortunate man Ring at length gave way to despondency, made his escape from the colony, and found his way to New Zealand, but was never heard of more. Mr. Marsden was much concerned for Ring’s misfortunes, and deplored his rashness in making his escape when all his sufferings were unmerited. “I knew,” he says, “if he should return to England and be apprehended as a returned felon, his life would be forfeited.” Such even to a recent period was the severity of our penal code, an escaped felon was consigned to the gallows. With a view of preventing this additional calamity, he wrote to the Right Honourable Mr. Robert Peel, his Majesty’s secretary of state for the home department, under date of July 1824; and having stated the case, he says: “I feel exceedingly for Ring; should he return to England and fall a sacrifice to the law, I should never forgive myself unless I used every means in my power to save him. The above statement of facts might have some influence with the executive in saving his life, if the circumstances of the case could reach the throne of mercy.” The contents of this letter were transmitted by Mr. Peel to Lord Bathurst the colonial secretary, and his lordship ordered the governor of New South Wales to establish a formal inquiry into the case. A court was accordingly summoned at Sydney, consisting of the governor assisted by two assessors, the chief justice and the newly-appointed archdeacon Scott, before which Mr. Marsden was cited to appear. He did so, the whole affair was investigated, and the[Pg 197] result was, as the reader will have anticipated, not only Mr. Marsden’s entire acquittal of the charges which wantonness and malice had preferred, but the establishment of his reputation as a man of high courage and pure integrity, and a Christian minister of spotless character.

The Christian reader will probably ask what were the effects of these various trials upon Mr. Marsden’s mind and temper? Did he become selfish and morose? were his spiritual affections quickened? As a minister of Christ, did his light shine with a more resplendent ray, or was it disturbed and overcast with gloom? To suggest and answer such inquiries are the proper uses of biography, especially the biography of religious men. With regard, then, to his habitual temper and tone of mind nothing can be more cheering than a letter, which we now insert, written to a lady in solitude, when the storm of insult and misrepresentation was at its highest pitch.

Systematic theology, or indeed deep learning in any of its branches, sacred or profane, Mr. Marsden had never cultivated. His life had not been given to abstraction and close study, but to the most active pursuits. Activity, however, is not inconsistent with deep thoughtfulness, and it affords some aids to reflection and observation, which often lay the foundation for a breadth of mind and a solid wisdom to which the mere student or man of letters seldom attains. Mr. Marsden, too, was well acquainted with his Bible, and, above most men, with himself. Thus, without being in any sense a learned divine, he was an instructive minister, and often an original thinker. His early acquaintance with Dr. Mason Good had led him deeply to consider the question of the deity of Christ and the following letter upon this all-important[Pg 201] doctrine proves how capable he was of standing forward in its defence, and how deeply alive he was to its importance. It was addressed to one who had begun to doubt upon the subject of our Lord’s Divine nature.

He remembered with gratitude his early friends, and was now in a condition to repay their kindness, and in his turn to repeat the Christian liberality which had once been extended to himself. From a private letter to the Rev. J. Pratt, we venture to make the following interesting quotation: “I believe in the year 1786 I first turned my attention to the ministry, and from the year 1787 to 1793 I received pecuniary assistance, more or less, from the Elland Society, but to what amount I never knew. First I studied under the Rev. S. Stores, near Leeds. In 1788, I went to the late Rev. Joseph Milner, and remained two years with him. From Hull I went to Cambridge, and in 1793 I left Cambridge, was ordained, and came out to New South Wales. I shall be much obliged to you to learn, if you can, the amount of my expenses to the Elland Society. I have always considered that a just debt, which I ought to pay. If you can send me the amount I shall be much obliged to you. I purpose to pay the amount from time to time, in sums not less than 50l. per annum.[Pg 204] When I close the Society’s accounts on the 31st of December next, I will give your Society credit for 50l., and will thank you to pay the same to the Elland Society on my account. When I know the whole amount, I will then inform you how I purpose to liquidate it. Should the Elland Society not be in existence, I have to request that the Church Missionary Society will assist some pious young man with a loan, per annum, of not less than 50l., to get into the church as a missionary. In the midst of all my difficulties God has always blessed my basket and my store, and prospered me in all that I have set my hand unto. The greatest part of my property is in the charge of common felons, more than a hundred miles from my house, in the woods, and much of it I never saw, yet it has been taken care of, and will be. A kind providence has watched over all that I have had, and I can truly say I feel no more concern about my sheep and cattle than if they were under my own eye. I have never once visited the place where many of them are, having no time to do this. We may trust God with all we have. I wish to be thankful to him who has poured out his benefits upon me and mine.”

The practical wisdom, the spirit of calm submission to the Divine will when danger appears, and the simple faith in Christ displayed in the following letter require no comment, nor will its affectionate and paternal tone pass unnoticed. It appears to have been written to a lady on the eve of a voyage to England. We could wish that a copy of it were placed in the hands of every lady who may be compelled to go to sea.

More than two years had now passed since Mr. Marsden’s last visit to New Zealand. The close of the year 1826 found him preparing for another, his fifth voyage, of twelve hundred miles, to the scene of those missions he had so long regarded with all a parent’s fondness. A great change had just taken place in the conduct of several chiefs towards the missionaries in consequence of their fierce intestine wars. At Wangaroa the whole of the Wesleyan missionary premises had been destroyed; the property of all the missionaries was frequently plundered, and their lives were exposed to the greatest danger. The worst consequences were apprehended, and the missionaries, warned of their danger by the friendly natives, were in daily expectation of being at least stripped of everything they possessed, according to the New Zealand custom. For a time the Wesleyan mission was suspended, and their pious and zealous missionary, Mr. Turner, took refuge at Sydney, and found a home at the parsonage of Paramatta. The clergy of the church[Pg 208] mission deeply sympathized with him. Mr. Henry Williams writes: “The return of Mr. Turner will be a convincing proof of our feelings on this point. In the present unsettled state of things we consider ourselves merely as tenants for the time being, who may receive our discharge at any hour.” His brother, the Rev. William Williams, in another communication says: “We are prepared to depart or stay according to the conduct of the natives; for it is, I believe, our united determination to remain until we are absolutely driven away. When the natives are in our houses, carrying away our property, it will then be time for us to take refuge in our boats.”

As soon as the painful intelligence reached New South Wales, Mr. Marsden determined to proceed to the Bay of Islands, and use his utmost exertions to prevent the abandonment of the mission. He was under no apprehension of suffering injury from the natives; and his long acquaintance with their character and habits led him to anticipate that the storm would soon pass away. Accordingly, he sailed for New Zealand in H.M.S. Rainbow, and arrived in the Bay of Islands on the 5th April, 1827. He had reached the period of life when even the most active crave for some repose, and feel themselves entitled to the luxury of rest; but his ardent zeal never seems to have wanted other refreshment than a change of duties and of scene. He found the state of things improved; peace had been restored; and the missionaries were once more out of danger. He conferred with them, and gave them spiritual counsel. As far as time would permit, he reasoned with the chiefs upon the baneful consequences of the late war, and, at the end of five days from his arrival, he was again upon the ocean, on his way back[Pg 209] to Sydney. “He was not wanted in New Zealand;” in Australia, besides domestic cares, many circumstances combined to make his presence desirable. Thus he was instant in season, out of season; disinterested, nay indifferent and utterly regardless of the honours and preferments which even good men covet; and ever finding in the work itself, and in Him for the love of whom it was undertaken, an abundant recompense.

Brief as the visit was, it confirmed his faith, and reassured his confidence in the speedy conversion of New Zealand. He found the missionaries living in unity and godly love, and devoting themselves to the work. “I trust,” he says, “that the Great Head of the church will bless their labours.” In consequence of his co-operation with the missionaries, the beneficial labours of the press now for the first time reached the Maori tribes. During a visit to Sydney, Mr. Davis had carried through the press a translation of the first three chapters of Genesis, the twentieth of Exodus, part of the fifth of Matthew, the first of John, and some hymns. These were small beginnings, but not to be despised; they prepared the way for the translation of the New Testament into Maori, which was printed a few years afterwards at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The importance of this work can scarcely be estimated, and it affords a striking example of the way in which that noble institution becomes the silent handmaid, preparing the rich repast which our various missionary societies are ever more distributing abroad, with bounteous hand, to feed the starving myriads of the heathen world.

Nor was the Polynesian mission forgotten by its old friend. The London Missionary Society now[Pg 210] conducted its affairs on so wide a basis, and to so great an extent, that Mr. Marsden’s direct assistance was no longer wanted. But how much he loved the work, how much he revered the missionaries, those who shall read the extract with which this chapter concludes will be at no loss to judge.

CHAPTER XI.

The shadows of evening now began to fall on him whose life had hitherto been full of energy, and to whom sickness appears to have been a stranger. He had arrived at the period when early friendships are almost extinct, and the few who survive are dropping into the grave. The year 1827 witnessed the death of Dr. Mason Good. Nearly twenty years had elapsed since he and Mr. Marsden had taken leave of one another; but their friendship had not cooled during that long term of absence; it seems rather to have gained strength with distance and declining years. Dr. Mason Good felt, and gratefully acknowledged, that to the conversations, and yet more to the high example of Mr. Marsden, he owed it, under God, that he was led to seek, through faith in Jesus, that holiness and peace which he found at last, and which shed so bright a lustre on his closing years. He had seen in his friend a living instance of disinterestedness, zeal, and humility combined, all springing from the love of God, and directed for Christ’s sake towards the welfare of man; such as he had never seen before—such as, he confessed, his own Socinian principles were incapable of producing. Far his superior as a scholar and a man of genius, he perceived and felt his inferiority in all that relates to the highest destinies of man; he sat, as a little child, a learner, in his pre[Pg 213]sence; and God, who is rich in mercy, brought home the lessons to his soul.

Nothing, on the other hand, could exceed the respect, almost amounting to reverence, mingled however with the warmest affection, with which Mr. Marsden viewed his absent friend. In every difficulty he had recourse to him for advice; more than once he intrusted the defence of his character and reputation entirely to his discretion. A correspondence of nearly twenty years, a few specimens of which are in the reader’s hand, show the depth of his esteem. Upon his death a fuller tide of affection gushed out; while he wrote thus to the mourning widow:—

[Pg 216]He was still subject to the persecutions of “unreasonable and wicked men,” and was again compelled to vindicate his conduct in a pamphlet, which issued from the press at Sydney, in 1828. Transmitting a copy to his friend, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, he says: “I consider myself a proscribed person these last few years. All the charges against me are contained in this pamphlet. My public offences, my illegal acts, the charges against me for inflicting torture to extort confession, for which I have been condemned unheard, and suffered as guilty. What an ungodly world may think or say of me, is of little moment; but I do not wish to lose the good opinion of my Christian friends, and fall in their estimation.” He returns to the subject in his correspondence with other Christian friends; for the apprehension that in him the cause of religion might seem to have received a wound, lay heavy on his mind. “I should feel much,” he says, writing to Mr. D. Coates, “if the cause of religion should suffer in my personal conduct; but I hope it will not. I hope I have said enough to satisfy the Christian world that I am clear in this matter. To justify my public conduct, was an act due to my family and to all my Christian friends, as well as the general interests of religion.” Nor was it merely the breath of slander that assailed him: he mentions in a private letter to the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, an act of grievous wrong inflicted by the British government. “I and my family were all struck off the public victualling books in the latter part of Governor Macquarie’s administration, without any compensation. The Rev. R. Cartwright and the Rev. William Cooper, with their families, were also struck off from the public stores at the same time. They have both had their claims[Pg 217] settled since governor Darling arrived. One received 700l., and the other more than 800l.; but I have received nothing. My claim is equally just, had I only served the same period as my colleagues, though I have served nearly twenty years longer than either of them. I can only attribute this act of injustice to some hostile feeling in the colonial office. Governor Darling has always shown me every attention I could wish.”

Yet he uttered no protest; he raised no clamour for redress. “I mention this circumstance to you,” he adds, “confidentially: when the truth of my case is laid before the public, perhaps my superiors may think differently of my conduct, and do me common justice.” Whether he obtained redress we are not informed. The occurrence shows the depth and bitterness of those hostile feelings, which we can trace to no other cause on his part than his boldness in rebuking vice, and his fidelity to the cause of his Lord and Master.

The year 1830 found Mr. Marsden once more upon the ocean. For neither increasing years nor the vexations through which he had passed damped his ardour in the missionary cause. His mind was stedfastly fixed on the progress of the gospel in New Zealand, and there he was anxious once more in person to assist in carrying on the work. He felt that his time was growing short, and hastened, “before his decease,” to “set in order the things which were wanting.”

He perceived, too, with mingled feelings, that New Zealand was about to undergo a great change. His efforts to induce the chiefs to unite under one head or sovereign elected by themselves, had totally failed.[Pg 218] Shunghie had been slain in battle, and his ambitious projects of gaining a New Zealand throne by conquest were at an end. War was the natural condition of all the Maori tribes, and this, rendered more deadly, though possibly less ferocious, by the introduction of fire-arms, was fearfully thinning their numbers from year to year. They were subject, too, to periodical returns of a terrible scourge, a disease resembling the influenza, which cut off multitudes. On the whole, it was calculated, that not more than a hundred thousand Maories now survived; while twenty years before, when the island was first visited, the numbers were at least two hundred thousand. It was evident that they could not long maintain their independence as a nation. European ships began to crowd the Bay of Islands. English settlers were already making their way into their choice and fertile lands. To minds less sagacious than Mr. Marsden’s, the result could be no longer doubtful—New Zealand must become an English colony. He foresaw the necessity, and, though at first with reluctance, cordially acquiesced in it, even for the sake of the Maories themselves. His concern now was to prepare them for a measure which must sooner or later take place. Everything was in a lawless state; the progress of the missions was greatly interrupted, and his presence was once more highly necessary. His own anxiety was great, first on behalf of the missions which had so long been the especial objects of his care; and then for New Zealand at large that the policy of Great Britain should respect the rights of the native tribes and pledge itself to their protection.

On his arrival in New Zealand, in March, 1830, he was greeted before the ship had cast anchor by the[Pg 219] Messrs. Williams and others of the missionary band, who hastened on board, and expressed their joy at his unexpected appearance among them. It was a critical moment, for they were in greater anxiety and difficulty than they had experienced at any former period of the mission. The natives were at open war, and but a day or two before a great battle had been fought on the opposite beach of the Bay of Islands, in which about fourteen hundred had been engaged. The alleged cause of the war was the misconduct of an English captain who had offered indignities to some native women on board his vessel. One tribe espoused his cause, while another came forward to avenge the insult. Six chiefs had fallen in the battle, and a hundred lives were lost; several whaling vessels were lying in the Bay, and their crews as well as the missionary stations, were in the utmost peril from the revenge of the victorious tribe, which now lay encamped at Keri-Keri.

There was not an hour to be lost. Mr. Marsden crossed the bay with Mr. Henry Williams early the next morning, to visit the camp as a mediator. The chiefs, many of whom from different parts of the island, had formerly been acquainted with Mr. Marsden, all expressed their gratification at meeting him again. After conversing with them on different points connected with proposals of peace, the two friendly mediators crossed over to the camp of their opponents, and entered at once on the subject of their mission. They spoke to them of the evils of war, and more particularly of the civil war in which they were engaged. “They heard all we had to say with great attention, and several of them replied to the different arguments we had used. They contended[Pg 220] that we were answerable for the lives of those who had fallen in the battle, as the war had been occasioned by the misconduct of the captain of a vessel one of our own countrymen; they wished to know what satisfaction we would give them for the loss of their friends who had been slain. We replied that we could give them no satisfaction, that we condemned his conduct, and were sorry that any of our countrymen had behaved so badly, and that we would write to England and prevent his return.” This the savages requested that Mr. Marsden would not do; they longed for his return, that they might take their own revenge. Mr. Marsden then proceeded to inform them that he had had an interview with the chiefs on the other side, who were willing to come to terms of peace, and wished him to assist in settling their quarrel. This information was received in a friendly way by the greater part: one or two still wished to fight. The mediators now returned to the beach, which they found covered with war canoes and armed men. A war council was held, and the Rev. Henry Williams stated the business upon which they had come amongst them. The natives listened attentively. Many of the chiefs gave their opinion in turn, with much force and dignity of address. These orations continued from an early hour in the morning, till the shades of evening were closing. It was finally agreed that the mediating party should proceed the next morning to the opposite camp and repeat what had taken place. After a long discussion, it was concluded that two commissioners from each party should be appointed, along with Mr. Marsden and Mr. Williams, to conclude the terms of peace. Having now urged all that was in their power to bring about a reconciliation,[Pg 221] they walked over the ground where the battle had been fought; a dreadful scene under any circumstances, unutterably loathsome, where cannibals were the contending parties. “The remains of some of the bodies that had been slain were lying unconsumed on the fires; the air was extremely offensive, and the scene most disgusting. We could not but bitterly lament these baneful effects of sin, and the influence of the prince of darkness over the minds of the poor heathen.”

The next day was Sunday, it was spent by Mr. Williams at the camp, for it was not considered safe at present to leave the savage warriors, whose angry passions smouldered. Mr. Marsden proceeded to the station, and preached to the infant church. Never was the gospel of Christ placed in finer contrast with the kingdom of darkness, and the appalling tyranny of the god of this world. Mr. Marsden’s pen thus describes the scene as he sketched it upon the spot:

These were trying times undoubtedly. The missions had existed fifteen years, and yet the powers of darkness raged in all the horrors of cannibal warfare, close to the doors of the missionary premises. On the following Tuesday morning, Mr. Marsden was aroused from his bed by a chief calling at his window to tell him that the army was in motion, and that a battle seemed to be at hand. He arose immediately and was informed that thirty-six canoes had been counted passing between the main and the island. He immediately launched the missionary boat and proceeded to meet them. “When we came up to them we found they had left their women and children on the island, and that they were all fighting men, well armed and ready for action in a moment’s notice. I counted more than forty men in one war canoe.” Yet amongst these infuriated savages the missionaries felt no alarm. “We were under no apprehension of danger; both parties placed the utmost confidence in us, and we were fully persuaded the commissioners would be cordially received.” If the event had turned[Pg 223] out otherwise Mr. Marsden and his friends had notice given them by the native commissioners, of whom we have spoken, that they would be seen alive no more. “The three native commissioners accompanied us in a small canoe which they paddled themselves. They brought their canoe between our two boats, and in that position we approached the beach. They told us if they were killed, we must be given up to their friends as a sacrifice for the loss of their lives.” The missionaries’ confidence was not misplaced; “the whole day was spent in deliberation; at night, after a long oration, the great chief on one side clove a stick in two to signify that his anger was broken. The terms of peace were ratified, and both sides joined in a hideous war dance together; repeatedly firing their muskets. We then took our departure from these savage scenes with much satisfaction, as we had attained the object we were labouring for.”

Such scenes did not for an instant disturb the firm faith and confidence of the great missionary leader. Coming from the midst of them he could sit down in the missionary hut and write as follows:

Even now the “Day-spring from on high” had visited this savage race. In no part of the world was the sabbath day more sacredly observed than by the converts in the missionary settlements; their lives gave evidence that their hearts were changed. Spiritual religion, deep and earnest, began to show its fruit in some of them; others were at least much impressed with the importance of eternal things. Mr. Marsden was waited upon one evening by several native young men and women who wished to converse on religious subjects; when they came in their anxious countenances explained the inward working of their minds; their object was to know what they must do to be saved. He endeavoured to set before them the love of Jesus in coming from heaven to die for a ruined world, and mentioned many instances of his love and mercy which he showed to sinners while on earth. “When I had addressed them at some length,” he adds, “a young native woman begun to pray.”

“I never heard any address offered up to heaven with such feelings of reverence, and piety, so much sweetness and freedom of expression, with such humility and heavenly mindedness. I could not doubt but that this young woman prayed with the Spirit, and with the understanding. She prayed fervently that God would pardon her sins and preserve her from evil; and for all the natives in the room, that they might all be preserved from falling into the temptations by which they were surrounded. Her very soul seemed to be swallowed up with the sense she had of the evil and danger of sin, and the love of Jesus, who[Pg 225] came to save sinners. Her voice was low, soft and harmonious; her sentences were short and expressed in the true spirit of prayer. I never expected to have seen, in my day, any of the natives of this barbarous nation offering up their supplications for pardon and grace, to the only true God, with such godly sorrow and true contrition.”

Amongst the audience in the room were the aged widow and two daughters of the great Shunghie. When they rose from their knees the ex-queen exclaimed, “Astonishing, astonishing!” and then retired; “and I confess,” adds Mrs. Marsden, “I was not less astonished than she was.” The young woman he learned had for some time lived upon the mission premises, and conducted herself in all respects as a Christian, adorning the gospel she professed. A few days after we find Mr. Marsden “marrying an Englishman to a native Christian woman, who repeated the responses very correctly in English which she well understood; she conducted herself with the greatest propriety, and appeared neatly dressed in European clothing of her own making, for she was a good sempstress.” Mr. Marsden considered, he says, this marriage to be of the first importance; and the New Zealanders appear to have been of the same mind, and to have done due honour to the occasion: for “the company came in a war canoe and brought their provisions with them, a pig and plenty of potatoes.” Shortly afterwards, he united a young native man and woman in marriage, they were both Christians, domestic servants to Mr. Clarke, one of the missionaries, and seemed to have a great affection for each other. The young man was free and of a good family; the young woman was a slave, having become such by capture; for all their[Pg 226] prisoners of war if not massacred were reduced to slavery. Mr. Clarke therefore redeemed her from her master, for five blankets, an axe, and an iron-pot. A chief seldom allowed any of his female slaves to marry, always reserving a number of them as wives for himself. We must therefore suppose that the price was a very liberal one.

The effects of Christianity were now apparent in some favoured spots, and Mr. Marsden returned home again full of hope and consolation. He had witnessed already changes far greater than he had ever hoped to see, sanguine as he was of ultimate success. So confident was he in the good feeling of the natives towards himself, that he had taken one of his daughters with him, and she accompanied him in his visits to the chiefs, one of whom, known by the title of King George, demanded her in marriage for his son; “an honour,” writes her father, “which I begged permission to decline.” Fearful indeed had been the condition of females hitherto amongst these savages, as the following extract, with which we conclude our notice of Mr. Marsden’s sixth visit to New Zealand, sufficiently attests. He is describing the great change which Christianity had effected among the New Zealanders.

“On one of my former visits to New Zealand, sitting in the room I am at present in, the natives killed and ate a poor young woman just behind the house. But what a wonderful change the gospel has wrought! In this little spot, where so late hellish songs were sung and heathen rites performed, I now hear the songs of Zion, and the voice of prayer offered up to the God of heaven. So wonderful is the power of God’s word.”

He returned home greatly cheered and well qualified “to comfort others with the comforts wherewith” he[Pg 227] himself “was comforted of God.” To Mrs. Good, the widow of his departed friend, he wrote as follows, soon afterwards:

In 1835, Mrs. Marsden died. She had long been patiently looking forward to her great change, and her last end was full of peace. Years had not abated his love for his “dear partner;” so he always called her when, after her decease, he had occasion to speak of her. He showed her grave, in sight of his study window, with touching emotion to his friends, and felt himself almost released from earth and its attractions when she had left it. His own increasing infirmities had led him to anticipate that he should be first removed, and the parsonage house being his only by a life tenure, he had built a comfortable residence for his widow, which however, she did not live to occupy. By this bereavement he was himself led to view the last conflict as near at hand; henceforward it constantly occupied his mind, and formed at times the chief subject of his conversation. He sometimes spoke of it amongst his friends with a degree of calmness, and at the same time with such a deep sense of its nearness and reality, as to excite their apprehensions as well as their astonishment. He stood on the verge of eternity and gazed into it with a tranquil eye, and spoke of what he saw with the composure of one who was “now ready to be offered,[Pg 230] and the time of whose departure was at hand;”—his last text before he had quitted New Zealand.

Yet he was not at all times equally serene. Returning one day from a visit to a dying bed, he called at the residence of a brother minister, the Rev. R. Cartwright, in a state of some dejection. He entered on the subject of death with feeling, and expressed some fears with regard to his own salvation. Mr. Cartwright remarked upon the happiness of himself and his friend as being both so near to their eternal rest, to which Mr. Marsden seriously replied with emphasis, “But Mr. C——, if I am there.” “If, Mr. Marsden?” rejoined his friend, surprised at the doubt implied. The aged disciple then brought forward several passages of Scripture bearing upon the deep responsibility of the ministerial office coupled with his own unworthiness; “lest I myself should be a castaway;” “if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;” remarking on his own sinfulness,—every thing he had done being tainted with sin,—on his utter uselessness,—and contrasting all this with the holiness and purity of God. At another time, coming from the factory after a visit to a dying woman, and deeply impressed with the awfulness of a dying hour in the case of one who was unprepared to die, he repeated in a very solemn manner some lines from Blair’s once celebrated poem on the grave—

He then spoke on the plan of salvation and the grace offered by the gospel with great feeling.

[Pg 231]The holiness and purity of God appeared at times to overwhelm his soul; contrasting it, as he did, with his own sinfulness, and viewing it in connexion with the fact that he must soon stand before his awful presence. Yet he speedily recovered his habitual peace, recalling the blessed truth that “there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” He was still on the whole a most cheerful Christian, joying and rejoicing in the hope of a blessed immortality. And as he drew near his journey’s end his prospects were still brighter and his peace increased.

CHAPTER XII.

History affords but few examples of a change such as New South Wales had undergone since Mr. Marsden landed from a convict ship in the penal settlement of Botany Bay in the year 1794. The gold fields had not yet disclosed their wealth, nor did he live to see the stupendous consequences which resulted from their discovery in 1851, the rush of European adventurers, and the sudden transformation of the dismal solitudes of Bendigo and Ballarat into the abode of thousands of restless, enterprising men, with all the attendant circumstances, both good and evil, of civilized life. But Australia was already a vast colony; in almost everything except the name, an empire, self-supporting, and with regard to its internal affairs, self governed, though still under the mild control, borne with loyalty and pride, of the English sovereign. The state of society was completely changed. For many years, the stream of emigration had carried to the fertile shores of Australia not the refuse of our jails, but some of the choicest of our population; the young, the intelligent, the enterprising, and the high principled, who sought for a wider field of action, or disdained to live at home, useless to society, and a burden to their relatives. Large towns such as[Pg 235]Sydney, Victoria, Geelong and Melbourne, with their spacious harbours crowded with shipping, were already in existence, and English settlers had covered with their flocks those inland plains which long after Mr. Marsden’s arrival still lay desolate and unexplored.

The religious condition of Australia was no less changed. All denominations were now represented by a ministry, and accommodated in places of worship not at all inferior to those at home. The Church of England had erected Sydney into a bishopric, of which the pious and energetic archdeacon Broughton was the first incumbent, and the number of the colonial clergy had been greatly increased; under all these influences the tone of social morality was improved, and real spiritual religion won its triumphs in many hearts. Mr. Marsden was now released from those official cares and duties as senior chaplain which once so heavily pressed upon him. Beyond his own parish of Paramatta his ministerial labours did not necessarily extend, and in his parish duties he had the efficient aid of his son-in-law and other coadjutors.

The one spot on which no cheering ray seemed to fall, the sterile field which after years of laborious cultivation yielded no return, was the native population, the aborigines of New South Wales.

We have mentioned some of the many futile attempts made for their conversion; more might be added; for various missions were devised,—by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, aided by the colonial government; by the Wesleyan and the Church Missionary Societies; and by the London Missionary Society; but none of these met with much success, and we fear all have been in turn abandoned. The mission of Mr. Threlkeld, on the margin of lake[Pg 236] Macquarie deserves especial notice. It was continued for upwards of fourteen years; during the first six years at the charges of the London Missionary Society, but owing to the heavy expense, and the slow progress of the mission, they withdrew from it after an outlay of about three thousand pounds. Mr. Threlkeld was reluctant to give up the mission, and pursued it for some time from his own resources and those of his friends, with a small grant of a hundred and fifty pounds a-year from the British government, who also made over ten thousand acres of land to be held on trust on behalf of the natives. Mr. Threlkeld seems to have been admirably fitted for his work; he had been the fellow labourer of the martyr John Williams, of Erromanga, and left the Tahitian mission in consequence of heavy domestic afflictions. He had spent much time in acquiring a knowledge of the language of the “blacks” or aborigines, of which he drew up a grammar, besides translating some portions of Scripture, Watts’s hymns, and other suitable works. He had generally three or four tribes resident around him upon the land granted for their use. Occasionally he employed from twelve to sixty of them in burning off the timber and clearing the land, an employment which they liked best. At this they would continue for eight or ten days at a time, until some native custom, or the report of the hostile intention of some neighbouring tribe, called them off, perhaps never to return. Harmless as they seemed, their customs were ferocious; the tribes were constantly at war, and upon human life they set no value; they had no law against murder, and consequently no punishment for it. A man may murder his wife, or child, or any other relative with impunity; but if a person murder another[Pg 237] who is no way connected with him, the nearest of kin to the murdered person will sometimes avenge his death; though this seldom happens unless the delinquent and the sufferer are of different tribes. It is only as they become acquainted with the customs of Europeans that human life is regarded. In their native wilds they sport with the sufferings both of man and beast.

At different periods, Mr. Threlkeld erected huts, but in these they could not be induced to live, alleging the accumulation of vermin and the fear of other natives coming in the night and spearing them without a possibility of escape. On urging them to plant corn on a piece of ground he had prepared for them, they replied it would be useless, as the tribes from the neighbouring Sugar Loaf Mountain, although on friendly terms, would come down and take it away when ripe. Mr. Threlkeld attributed the failure of his mission partly to the want of funds, but still more to the influx of European settlers. He deeply deplored the want of legal protectors, both to prevent the ferocious attacks of the blacks upon each other, and to protect them from the white man’s atrocities. “I am firmly of opinion,” adds Mr. Threlkeld, in the annual report of his mission for the year 1836, “that a Protector of Aborigines will be fully employed in investigating cases of the cruelty of European settlers, which are both numerous and shocking to humanity, and in maintaining their civil rights.”

He had but too much reason to express himself thus. The cases of oppression which he himself describes, are most revolting. In one instance, a stockman, or herdsman, boasted to his master of having killed six or seven black men with his own hands, when in pursuit of them with his companions; for[Pg 238] they were hunted down in mere wantonness and sport. He was merely dismissed from his employer’s service. In another, a party of stockmen went out, some depredation having been committed by the blacks in spearing their cattle, took a black prisoner, tied his arms, and then fastened him to the stirrup of a stockman on horseback to drag him along. When the party arrived near their respective stations they separated, leaving the stockman to conduct the prisoner to his own hut. The black, when he found they were alone, was reluctant to proceed, and struggled to get free, when the stockman took his knife from his pocket, coolly stuck the black in the throat, and left him for dead. The poor fellow crawled to the house of a gentleman dwelling on the plains, told his tale, and died.

These are but specimens of cruelties, too numerous and too horrible to relate. The blacks, of course, retaliated, and military parties were sent out against them. On the 31st October, 1828, the executive council of the colony declared in their minutes, “that the outrages of the aboriginal natives amount to a complete declaration of hostilities against the settlers generally,” but they forgot to add that these hostilities had been provoked in every instance by the wanton aggression of the Europeans. Martial law was again proclaimed in October, 1830, against the natives, and the governor at length determined to call upon the inhabitants to take up arms, and join the troops in forming a military cordon, by means of which he proposed to drive the aborigines into Tasman’s Peninsula. The inhabitants responded to the call, and an armed force of between two and three thousand men were in the field from the 4th October till the 26th November; but the attempt entirely failed.

[Pg 239]Mr. Marsden lived to see the beginnings of a better system, though from his advanced age he was now no longer able to take an active part in the formation of new institutions. Before his death, a society had been formed in the colony for the protection of the aborigines, and government had also appointed protectors to defend them against wanton outrage. This was a great advance in a colony where, Lieutenant Sadleir (who had the charge of the school at Paramatta for the aborigines) tells us, that on his first tour up the country he saw the skull of a celebrated native, in which was visible the hole where the ball had penetrated the forehead, placed over a gentleman’s bookcase in his sitting-room; “a trophy,” he says, “which he prized very much, of his success in one of those exterminating excursions then sometimes undertaken, when the natives were hunted down like beasts of prey to be destroyed.” But it was not till the year 1839 that an act was passed by the legislative council giving extensive powers to certain “commissioners of lands,” who were also magistrates of the territory, to put a stop to the atrocities so extensively committed beyond the boundaries, both by the aborigines and the European settlers. The governor drew attention to this act in a proclamation worthy of his high office. “As human beings,” he remarks, “partaking of our common nature, as the aboriginal possessors of the soil from which the wealth of the country has been principally derived, and as subjects of the queen, whose authority extends over every part of New Holland, the natives of the colony have an equal right with the people of European origin to the protection and assistance of the law of England.

“His excellency thinks it right further to inform[Pg 240] the public that each succeeding despatch from the secretary of state marks in an increasing degree the importance which her Majesty’s government, and no less the parliament and the people of Great Britain, attach to the just and humane treatment of the aborigines of this country, and to declare most earnestly and solemnly his deep conviction that there is no subject or matter whatsoever in which the interests as well as the honour of the colonists are more essentially concerned.”

His excellency was soon called upon to bring his professions of impartial justice to the test. A few weeks only after the date of the proclamation, seven monsters in human shape, convicts who had been assigned as stockmen to some of the settlers in the interior, influenced, it would seem, by no other motive than a fiendish determination to exterminate the unhappy natives, set out on horseback in pursuit of their victims. One Charles Kilmaister was their leader. They were traced in their progress, inquiring after blacks, and at last it appeared they arrived at a hut near the Orawaldo, commonly called the Big River, beyond Liverpool Plains. Here they discovered a little tribe of about thirty natives, men, women, and children, including babes at their mothers’ breasts, assembled in the bush, unsuspicious of danger, and unconscious of offence. It was on Sunday. They immediately approached their victims, who, terrified at their manner, ran into Kilmaister’s hut, crying for protection; but they appealed to hearts of stone. The bandits having caught them as it were in a trap, dismounted and followed them into the hut, and, despite of their entreaties, tied them together with a rope. When all were thus secured, one end of the rope was[Pg 241] tied round the body of the foremost of the murderers, who, having mounted his horse, led the way, dragging the terrified group after him, while his infamous companions guarded them on all sides. Onward they were dragged till a fitting place in the bush was reached, when the work of slaughter commenced, and unresisting, these hapless wretches, one after the other, were brutally butchered. Fathers, and mothers, and children, fell before the previously sharpened swords of their executioners, till all lay together a lifeless mass, clinging to each other even in death, as with the throes of natural affection. But one shot was fired, so that it was presumed one only perished by fire-arms. The precise number thus immolated has not been accurately ascertained, but it is computed not less than thirty lay stretched on their own native soil. The demon butchers then placed the bodies in a heap, kindled an immense fire over them, and so endeavoured to destroy the evidence of their unheard-of brutality. The eye of providence, however, was not to be thus blinded; and although for a time the miscreants imagined they had effectually disguised their horrible work, circumstances led to their apprehension. Birds of prey were seen hovering about the spot where the unconsumed remains yet rotted on the ground. Stockmen in search of their strayed cattle were attracted to the place, supposing they should find their carcasses. In this way it was that the ribs, jaw-bones, half-burned skulls, and other portions of human skeletons were found, while symptoms of the conflagration in the vicinity were likewise discovered. This led to inquiry, and ultimately to the discovery of the horrible truth. The place was fifty miles from the nearest police station. The whole of the villains[Pg 242] were apprehended, and their own admissions and conduct, both previous and subsequent to the atrocious deed, added to a chain of circumstantial evidence, left no doubt of their guilt. It chanced that the night previous to the murders a heavy rain had fallen, and traces were thus discovered of horses feet, as well as of the naked feet of the wretched natives, on the way to the field of death. The chief witness, a respectable man, scarce dared, however, to return to the district, so strong was the sympathy expressed towards these miscreants, even by persons of influence, some of whom were magistrates. All possible pains were taken to save them from condign punishment; subscriptions were made for their defence, and counsel retained, but in vain; their guilt was established beyond a doubt, and Sir George Gipps, the governor, suffered the law to take its righteous course.

Yet the progress of humanity and righteousness was very slow, and Mr. Marsden did not live to see equal justice, not to speak of gospel truth or English liberty, carried to the aborigines. In the very year of his death, an effort was made by the attorney-general of the colony to pass a bill to enable the courts of justice to receive the evidence of the blacks, hitherto inadmissible. The chief justice of Australia gave his sanction to the measure. In laying this bill before the council, as the law officer of the crown, the attorney-general gave some painful instances of its necessity. There was then, he said, lying in his office a very remarkable case, in which there was no doubt a considerable number of blacks had been shot, but in consequence of not being able to take the evidence of the blacks who witnessed the transaction, it was impossible to prosecute, although there was proof that[Pg 243] certain parties went into the bush in a certain direction with fire-arms, and that shots were heard. The dead bodies of blacks were afterwards found there, the skulls of some of them being marked with bullets. On the other hand five blacks were convicted of a larceny, and could be convicted of no higher offence, although those who heard the case must have been convinced that they had murdered two white men; but, because the blacks, who knew how the murder was committed, could not be heard as witnesses, it was impossible to prosecute them for the murder. The bill only went so far as to allow the blacks to be heard,—“to allow them to tell their own story; the jury might believe them or not as their evidence was corroborated circumstantially, or by other witnesses.” Yet this simple instalment of justice was denied, and the bill was rejected by the legislative council. Such are some of the crimes through which even England, just and generous England, has ascended her dazzling throne of colonial empire. When we tear aside the veil of national pride, how gloomy are the recesses of our colonial history; how large the amends which Britain owes to every native population which God has intrusted to her care!

Mr. Marsden was now seventy-two years of age. On every side the friends of his youth were falling, and he was bowed down with bodily infirmities, the natural consequence of a life of toil. He often pointed to an aged tree which grew in sight of his windows, as an emblem of himself. It had once stood in the middle of a thick wood, surrounded on all sides with fine timber; which the waste of years and the ruthless axe had levelled; now it stood alone, exposed to every blast, its branches broken off, its trunk[Pg 244] decayed and its days numbered. Yet he resolved to pay another, his seventh, and, as it proved, his last visit to New Zealand. It was thought by his friends, that he would never live to return. His age and infirmities seemed to unfit him for any great exertion of either mind or body; but having formed the resolution, nothing could now deter him, or divert him from it. He sailed on the 9th February, 1837, in the Pyramus, accompanied by his youngest daughter, and he seemed to be cheered by the reflection that if he should die upon his voyage he should die in his harness and upon the battle field on which God had chosen him to be a leader.

And yet his sturdy spirit scarcely bowed itself to such misgivings. As on former visits, he had no sooner landed than his whole soul was invigorated by scenes from which most others would have shrunk. He landed on the southern side of the island, at the river Hokianga, and remained amongst the Wesleyan missionaries for about a fortnight; after which he crossed over to the Bay of Islands, carried all the way in a litter by the natives. In this way he visited the whole of the missionary stations in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, as well as Kaitaia, a station at the North Cape. On the arrival of H. M. S. Rattlesnake, he accompanied Captain Hobson (afterwards governor of New Zealand), to the river Thames, and the East Cape, returning at length to Sydney in that ship, where he arrived on the 27th of July after an absence of five months. When entering the heads of Port Jackson, one of the officers of the ship observed, “I think Mr. M. you may look upon this as your last visit to New Zealand;” upon which he replied, “No I don’t, for I intend to be off again in about six[Pg 245] weeks, the people in the colony are becoming too fine for me now. I am too old to preach before them, but I can talk to the New Zealanders.”

Of this, his last visit, we must give some account. Captain Livesay of the Pyramus, in a valuable letter to Mr. Nicholas, has given some interesting reminiscences of his passenger:—

The remainder of the letter has reference to the[Pg 246] state and prospects of New Zealand. The sentiments are honourable to a British sailor. How happy it would have been for the Maori race, had all English captains who visited the Bay of Islands, been such men as Captain Livesay!

He says, “It affords me great satisfaction to find that a committee are forming for the colonization of New Zealand, on the scale you intimate. It is very much to be desired indeed; as the poor natives are becoming a prey and a sacrifice to a set of dissolute wretches who do all in their power to sink the savage into the perfect brute, or by design and craft to cheat them out of all their possessions. Even those who call themselves respectable, are amongst this number, and one or two, to my certain knowledge, have purchased an immense extent of land for a mere song, depriving the rising generation of all their claims. The New Zealanders are upon the whole, a fine and intelligent race, capable of much if well directed. They are accused of low cunning, and covetousness in their dealings with the Europeans. Let the question be asked, who taught them to be so? Why, the Europeans themselves. They are said to be ferocious. I maintain that they are not half so much so as our own ancestors in the barbarous times of Britain; and where Christianity has been properly introduced, they are quite a different race of beings. Let but the ill weeds that have taken root there be torn up, and the wholesome plant of industry and sobriety, with the spirit of the gospel, sown in its place, and all the savage will soon cease to be.”

The “ill weeds” were springing up apace, and, as a consequence, the missionary cause was once more in peril.

[Pg 247]An English barque had lately been wrecked upon the coast, but fortunately Mr. Guard the captain, his wife, two children, and the crew, twenty-eight in all, escaped to land. At first, according to the statement of the captain, the natives treated them with kindness, which they soon exchanged, under what pretext, or in consequence of what provocations on either side, it would be useless to ask, for open hostilities. A quarrel was got up between two native tribes, and an engagement followed, in which twelve Europeans, and about forty Maories fell. Guard and his party were taken prisoners. It shows how great an improvement had taken place amongst the natives, that they were not massacred and devoured; but, on condition of returning with a cask of powder as a ransom for himself and the rest, Guard and five of his men were allowed to proceed, without further molestation, to Sydney; where he laid the matter before Sir Richard Bourke the governor. Relying on the accuracy of Guard’s narrative, the governor, with the advice of the executive council, requested Captain Lambert to proceed with H.M.S. Alligator, which happened to be lying in Port Jackson, to obtain the restoration of the British subjects, then in the hands of the New Zealanders. He was instructed to abstain from any act of retaliation, and to obtain the restoration of the captives by amicable means; and Guard and his five men returned in the same ship.

Soon after the arrival of the party at New Zealand, Guard recognised the chief who was now the proprietor of the shipwrecked woman and children; and the unsuspicious native rubbed noses with him in token of amity, at the same time expressing his readiness to give up his prisoners on receiving the[Pg 248] “payment” guaranteed to him. This, however was not the way in which the affair was to be settled; Guard and his sailors seized him as a prisoner, and dragged him into the whale boat in which the party had gone ashore. The cruelty practised towards this unfortunate man, and the fearful havoc committed by the English, we gladly pass over. Such iniquitous transactions reflect but little credit on us as a Christian or a civilized people; and they were, moreover, in direct opposition to the benevolent instructions of Sir Richard Bourke. The British subjects were restored; as indeed they might have been without the loss of a single life, through the intervention of the missionaries, and of the British resident at the Bay of Islands, and the expedition having gained its object by force and stratagem, returned to Sydney with the troops and the liberated captives.

This painful affair, as well as other acts of outrage, on the part of the natives, which were its natural consequence, made a deep impression at the time, and were a source of great uneasiness to Mr. Marsden. He saw at once the danger to which they exposed the missionaries and their cause, and felt, no doubt, a just reliance on himself. Unarmed and unprotected, had he been upon the spot, he would have accomplished more in his own person than all those warlike measures had effected, which anew embittered the Maori race against the Europeans.

His record of his farewell visit was probably not kept with his former accuracy; but the chasm is well supplied by the interesting journal of his daughter, some extracts from which the reader will peruse with pleasure. We have the whole scene placed before us by her graceful pen, and we gain some glimpse into[Pg 249] her father’s character, which we should certainly not have gathered from his own modest, self-forgetting, memoranda.

The journey across from Hokianga to the Waimaté, as described by Miss Martha Marsden, shows, in the absence of railroads and steam carriages, an agreeable if not expeditious mode of conveyance. “Took leave of Mrs. Turner; and, mounted in a chair on the shoulders of two New Zealanders, I headed the procession. My father, Mr. Wilkinson, and the two children, were carried in ‘kaw-shores,’ or native biers, on which they carry their sick. We entered a forest of five miles, then stopped to dine. The natives soon cooked their potatoes, corn, etc., in their ovens, which they scoop in the sand, and after heating a number of stones, the potatoes are put in, covered with grass and leaves, and a quantity of water poured upon them; they were exquisitely steamed. As I approached one of the groups sitting at dinner, I was much affected by seeing one of them get up and ask a blessing over the basket of potatoes.

“Five miles from Waimaté I left my chair, mounted on horseback, and reached Waimaté for breakfast. Old Nini accompanied us the whole way, and told my father if he attempted to ride he would leave him. The natives carried him the whole way with the greatest cheerfulness, and brought him through the most difficult places with the greatest ease. The distance they carried him was about twenty miles.”

The state of all the missions with regard to their spiritual work was now full of hope. Of the Wesleyan mission Mr. Marsden himself reports, “I found that many were inquiring after the Saviour, and that a large number attended public worship. The prospect[Pg 252] of success to the Church of England Mission is very great. Since my arrival at the missionary station I have not heard one oath spoken by European or native; the schools and church are well attended, and the greatest order is observed among all classes. I met with many wherever I went, who were anxious after the knowledge of God. Wherever I went I found some who could read and write. They are all fond of reading, and there are many who never had an opportunity of attending the schools who, nevertheless, can read. They teach one another in all parts of the country, from the North to the East Cape.”

The native tribes were still at war with each other, and with the European settlers—the miserable effect of Captain Guard’s rash conduct. From the missionary station at Pahia Mr. Marsden’s daughter counted one morning twenty-one canoes passing up the bay. A battle followed, which she witnessed at a distance, and the Europeans all around fled to the missionary station. In the engagement three chiefs fell; a second fight occurred soon afterwards. “We have heard firing all day,” she writes; “many have been killed; we saw the canoes pass down the river containing the bodies of the slain.” Mr. Marsden himself was absent on a visit to the southward, or his presence might possibly have prevented these scenes of blood.

Wherever the venerable man appeared, he was received by the converted natives with Christian salutations and tears of joy; the heathen population welcomed him with the firing of muskets and their rude war dances. Wherever he went, he was greeted with acclamations as the friend and father of the New Zealanders. One chieftain sat down upon the ground before him gazing upon him in silence, without moving[Pg 253] a limb or uttering a single word for several hours. He was gently reproved by Mr. Williams for what seemed a rudeness. “Let me alone,” said he, “let me take a last look; I shall never see him again.” “One principal chief,” writes Mr. Marsden, “who had embraced the gospel and been baptized, accompanied us all the way. We had to travel about forty miles, by land and water. He told me he was so unhappy at Hokianga that he could not get to converse with me from the crowds that attended, and that he had come to Waimaté to speak with me. I found him to be a very intelligent man, and anxious to know the way to heaven.” While at Kaitai he held a constant levée, sitting in an arm-chair, in an open field, before the mission house; it was attended by upwards of a thousand Maories, who poured in from every quarter; many coming a distance of twenty or thirty miles, contented to sit down and gaze on his venerable features; and so they continued to come and go till his departure. With his characteristic kindness and good nature he presented each with a pipe and fig of tobacco; and when he was to embark at last, they carried him to the ship, a distance of six miles.

Before leaving New Zealand, he wrote to the Church Missionary Society an account which glows with pious exultation, describing the success with which the Head of the church had at length been pleased to bless the labours of his faithful servants. Since his arrival, he says, he had visited many of the stations within the compass of a hundred miles. It was his intention to have visited all of them, from the North to the East Cape; but from the disturbed state of the country “it was not considered prudent for him to go to the[Pg 254] south,” where he still contemplated further efforts “when the country should be more settled in its political affairs.” He had “observed a wonderful change: those portions of the sacred Scriptures which had been printed have had a most astonishing effect; they are read by the natives in every place where I have been; the natives teach one another, and find great pleasure in the word of God, and carry that sacred treasure with them wherever they go. Great numbers have been baptized, both chiefs and their people.” He had met with some very pious chiefs, who had refused to share in the present war, and avowed their resolution to fight no more. One of them, at his own cost, had built a chapel, or place of public worship, which was visited by the missionaries; in this he himself taught a school, assisted by his son. “Waimaté, once the most warlike district in the island, is now,” he says, “the most orderly and moral place I was ever in. My own mind has been exceedingly gratified by what I have seen and heard.” Old age, it seems, is not always querulous; its retrospects are not always in favour of the past; the aged Christian walks with a more elastic step as he sees the fruit of his labour, and anticipates his own great reward. “Mine eyes,” he concludes, “are dim with age like Isaac’s; it is with some difficulty I can see to write.”

Nor had the weakness and credulity of advancing years led him to take for granted, as in second childhood old age is wont to do, the truth of first impressions, or the accuracy of every man’s reports. He still gave to every subject connected with missions the closest attention, penetrated beneath the surface, and formed his own conclusions. While in New Zealand,[Pg 255] for instance, he addresses the following queries to Mr. Matthews, one of the missionaries, on the subject of education:—

On one point only he met with no success. He had not yet quite abandoned the pleasing dream of a Maori nation, united under one chief; a Christian people, governed by a code of native law. Tahiti naturally encouraged these bright visions, and seemed to show how easily they might be realized. There, for ten years past, under king Pomare, the wondrous spectacle had been presented to the world of a whole people, under the guidance of their king, rejecting idolatry, and with it all the base usages of savage life, and working out their own national regeneration; framing a Tahitian code of law on the sound principles of Christian jurisprudence, and cordially adopting it. Why should not a similar state of things be brought[Pg 256] about in New Zealand? The instrumental agency in both islands was the same; namely, that of Christian missionaries, chiefly, if not entirely, English Christians, who carried with them, it might be supposed, to both islands the same reverence for order, and with it the same love of liberty. Were the Maories an inferior race, compared with the aborigines of the Tahitian group? On the contrary, the difference was rather in favour of the Maori; he was the more athletic, and consequently the more vigorous in his mental development; indeed, upon the whole, he stands unapproached by any other tribe of man uncivilized and in a state of nature; unless we go back to the heroic ages and find his equal amongst ancient Greeks at the dawning of their somewhat fabulous history.

Yet the project failed; and Mr. Marsden was now obliged mournfully to admit that New Zealand’s only hope lay in her annexation to the British crown. The two causes of the failure of these otherwise reasonable expectations are to be found, no doubt, first, in the circumstances of the Maori tribes, and secondly, in the pernicious effects produced by European traders and settlers.

Tahiti was happy in possessing one sovereign. New Zealand was unfortunate in its multitude of petty chieftains. When the heart of king Pomare was gained, the confidence of a loyal and devoted people was at once won over. There was no rival to foment rebellion, or to seize the occasion of a religious festival, when he and his people were unarmed, to make inroads on his territory. With the assistance of his council, and under the advice of the faithful missonaries, a code of law was easily prepared, suited for all his subjects, and adapted to every part of his little kingdom.[Pg 257] In New Zealand, on the contrary, the chiefs, each of whom claimed to be perfectly independent of the rest, were constantly at enmity with each other. The violent passions of civil war never slept—hatred, revenge, and jealousy. The missionaries, if cherished by Shunghie, were hated or feared by Shunghie’s opponent. Their direct influence in the politics of the Maories was therefore, of necessity, slight. But the chief hindrance arose from the mutual animosities of the chiefs, and the want of confidence in each other which universally prevailed, both among chiefs and people.

And it must be confessed with sorrow, that the evil example of the Europeans provoked the natives to fresh crimes, and indisposed them to all the restraints of civil government. The Polynesian Islands had, up to this period, known neither commerce nor colonization. Except a chance visit from a man-of-war, a European ship was scarcely ever seen; or the few which came and went were connected with the missions, and were manned by decent if not religious crews. The polluting influence of a debauched and drunken body of seamen, rolling in constant succession to its shores, had not yet tainted the moral atmosphere of Tahiti and its neighbouring group. And colonization had not even been attempted; the natives were left in full possession of their soil, no man making them afraid. In New Zealand all this was reversed. Wicked seamen infected even savages with new vices; and lawless settlers set an example of injustice, shocking even to New Zealanders. For these evils it was evident there was but one remedy, the strong hand of British rule. Take the following sketch from the pen of Mr. Marsden. After describing the happy state of the Christian settlement at Waimaté, he goes on to[Pg 258] say: “On the opposite side of the harbour, a number of Europeans have settled along with the natives. Several keep public-houses, and encourage every kind of crime. Here drunkenness, adultery, murder, etc. are committed. There are no laws, judges, nor magistrates; so that Satan maintains his dominion without molestation. Some civilized government must take New Zealand under its protection, or the most dreadful evils will be committed by runaway convicts, sailors and publicans. There are no laws here to punish crimes. When I return to New South Wales, I purpose to lay the state of New Zealand before the colonial government, to see if anything can be done to remedy these public evils.” “I hope in time,” he says again, in a letter, dated May 16th, 1837, from Pahaia, to the Rev. James Matthews, “the chiefs will get a governor. I shall inform the Europeans in authority how much they are distressed in New Zealand for want of a governor with power to punish crime. The Bay of Islands is now in a dreadful state.... It is my intention to return to New South Wales by the first opportunity.”

That opportunity soon appeared, and the venerable founder of its missions, the advocate of its native population, the friend of all that concerned its present or spiritual welfare, took his last leave of the shores of New Zealand. Preparations were made for his reception on board H. M. S. Rattlesnake. The signal gun was fired, and all the friends from Waimaté and Keri-Keri arrived to accompany their revered father to the beach, “Where,” says one of them who was present, “like Paul at Miletus, we parted with many benedictions: sorrowing most of all that we should see his face again no more. Many could not bid him adieu. The parting was with many tears.”

[Pg 259]His happy temperament always diffused pleasure and conciliated friendship. On board the Rattlesnake he was welcomed with warm, affectionate, respect. Captain Hobson, who was afterwards for a time governor of New Zealand, knew his worth, and felt honoured by his company; and Mr. Marsden fully appreciated the high character and courtesy of the commander, whose widow retains a handsome piece of plate presented to her husband by his grateful passenger, as a memorial of the happiness he enjoyed on this his last voyage homewards.

The chaplain of the Rattlesnake noted down an affecting conversation with the aged minister upon his voyage, which we are permitted to insert:—

“We enjoyed a most lovely evening. I had a long conversation with Mr. Marsden on deck. He spoke of almost all his old friends having preceded him to the eternal world; Romaine, Newton, the Milners, Scott, Atkinson, Robinson, Buchanan, Mason Good, Thomason, Rowland Hill, Legh Richmond, Simeon, and others. He then alluded in a very touching manner to his late wife; they had passed, he observed, more than forty years of their pilgrimage through this wilderness in company, and he felt their separation the more severely as the months rolled on. I remarked that their separation would be but for a short period longer. ‘God grant it,’ was his reply; then lifting his eyes towards the moon, which was peacefully shedding her beams on the sails of our gallant bark, he exclaimed with intense feeling.

CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Marsden had now passed the allotted span of human life, though his days were not yet “labour and sorrow.” Entering upon his seventy-second year with stooping gait and failing eyesight and a decaying memory, he had otherwise few of the mental infirmities of age. He was still a perfect stranger to fear, as well as to that nervous restlessness and susceptibility which wears the appearance of it, though often found, as may be daily observed, in connexion with the truest courage. After his return home from his last voyage he was attacked, when driving with his youngest daughter, upon one of his excursions in the bush, by two famous bush rangers Wormley and Webber, part of a gang who for a period of two years kept the whole country in a state of terror. One of the ruffians presented a loaded pistol at his breast and another at his daughter’s, threatening with horrid imprecations to shoot them both, if they said a word, and bidding his daughter to empty her father’s pockets into their hands. Perfectly undismayed, Mr. Marsden remonstrated with them on their wicked course of life, telling them at last that he should soon see them again, he had no doubt, on the gallows. At parting, though charged, with the usual threats, not to look behind him,[Pg 261] he turned round, and continued, while they were in sight, to warn them in the same strain of the certain consequences of a life of crime. His admonition was soon verified; the wretched men were apprehended for other outrages and sentenced to death, and he himself attended them from the condemned cell to the place of execution.

These excursions into the country around Paramatta, where he had gone about for a period of nearly forty years doing the work of an evangelist or home missionary, were continued to the last. To wind through devious paths in the bush in his one horse chaise, where his good horse Major seemed as if trained to penetrate, gave him the highest pleasure. The way was often trackless, and he was obliged to ask his companion whether the trace of a cartwheel could be seen. Yet there was an instinctive feeling of safety in his company, and a refreshment in his conversation, which always made the vacant seat in the gig prized by those who knew and loved him. “As he drove along,” says a Christian lady, the wife of Captain B—— who was his companion on some of his last journeys, “wherever he went there was always to be found some testimony to that goodness and mercy which had followed him all the days of his life. Some Ebenezer he could raise where helped perhaps in an encounter with a bushranger, having only the sword of the Spirit with which to defend himself and disarm his foe, or some Bethel, it might be, where like Jacob he had been enabled to wrestle and prevail. With such a companion no one could be a loser. On these excursions, no matter to what distance, he seemed to think preparations needless, he would travel miles and miles without any previous consideration for his own[Pg 262] comfort or convenience. Even a carpet-bag was an encumbrance. He had been too long accustomed to make his toilet with the New Zealander, and take with him his meal of fern-root, to be particular, or to take thought, what he should eat, or wherewithal should he be clothed.”

His love of the country and of rural scenes gave a strong colouring, and great originality to his preaching as well as to his own religious character. He called his estate “The plains of Mamre.” This property we may remind the reader had been presented to Mr. Marsden in the early days of the colony, when land uncleared was absolutely worthless, to eke out his insufficient stipend. It had now become valuable, and he was exposed both in the colony and in England to many unjust remarks, even from those who should have known him better, on the score of his reputed wealth. His own justification of himself is more than sufficient. Being told that he was charged with avarice, “Why,” said he, “they might as well find fault with Abraham whose flocks and herds multiplied. Abraham never took any trouble about it, nor do I. I can’t help their increasing;” and he added, a remark so true and of such pregnant import that it ought for ever to have put to silence this miserable carping; “It was not for myself, but for the benefit of this colony and New Zealand, that I ever tried to promote agriculture or the improvement in sheep or cattle.” Had he done nothing else for Australia, his introduction of Merino sheep with a view to the growth of wool would have marked him down upon the roll of her greatest benefactors.

Through life his choicest topics in the pulpit had been the patriarchs, their lives and characters[Pg 263] but as he grew old, he seemed unconsciously to rank amongst their number; to fall into and become one of their own body; himself a Christian patriarch. It was the frequent remark of his friends that he spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, just as if he had lived in their times, heard their conversations, and been well acquainted with them. It is much to be regretted that more full and accurate reports of his sermons and conversations should not have been kept. The truth and originality of his remarks would have made them invaluable. When seated in his chair upon the lawn before his house, surrounded by his family and friends, his conversations took the prevailing turn of his mind, and he used to dwell on the incidents of patriarchal life with a depth of feeling and a power of picturesque description of which one would be glad that the memorials should not have been allowed to perish.

At an examination of the King’s School at Sydney, the headmaster having requested him to ask the boys some questions upon Scripture history, forgetting the business in hand, he broke out into a long and interesting address on patriarchal life and manners. The end contemplated by the headmaster was of course frustrated, “but we dare say,” says the colonial journalist who tells the story, “there are many young persons now growing up into manhood, who, to this day remember the pious and excellent observations of the venerable man.”

His old age exhibited some traits not always to be found, even in good men, after a long life passed among scenes of danger or amidst the hardening warfare of personal animosities. Though to the last bold in reproving sin his real character was that of gentleness and the warmest social affection. None but the[Pg 264] bad were ever afraid of him; on the contrary, his presence diffused a genial light and warmth in every company. Cruel savages and little children loved him alike; the wisest men gathered instruction from his lips, while they found pleasure in his simple courtesy and manly open heartedness. He brought home with him in the Rattlesnake from New Zealand, several Maori youths; “they seemed to love and respect their Matua, as they called him, more than any one, or anything, besides. They used to run after his gig like joyous children, and to attempt to catch his eye as if to bask in the sunshine of his benevolent countenance.” “They delighted;” says Mrs. B——, to whose manuscript of Mr. Marsden’s last years of life we are again indebted, “to come to our barrack apartments with him, always making their way to the bookcase first, take out a book and point upwards, as if everybody who had anything to do with ‘Matua’ must have all their books leading to heaven. Pictures pleased them next; when they would direct each others’ attention to what they considered worthy of notice, with extraordinary intelligence; but when the boiled rice and sweets made their appearance, digging their elbows into each others’ sides, with gesticulations of all sorts, and knowing looks, putting their fingers to their mouths, and laughing with greedy joy, Mr. Marsden all the time watching their movements, and expressive faces, as a kind nurse would the gambols and frolics of her playful charge, saying with restrained, but grateful emotion, ‘Yes, sir, nothing like bringing the gospel at once to the heathen. If “music charms the savage breast,” sir, why should not the sweetest sounds that ever met man’s ear do more? Why, sir, the gospel turns a worse than savage into a man, ay, and into a[Pg 265] woman too.’ He then related to us the anecdote of a New Zealand woman who, for the last remaining years of her life preached the gospel among her own sex, having acknowledged to him, that before he had brought the word of God to New Zealand, and the Spirit applied it to her heart, she had killed and eaten nineteen children.”

His last communication to the Church Missionary Society, dated December 10th, 1837, and received after his death, is full of hope for his beloved New Zealanders. “I am happy to say the mission goes on well amidst every difficulty. I visited many places in my last voyage from the North Cape to Cloudy Bay. The gospel has made a deep impression upon many of the natives, who now lead godly lives.” The letter, which is written in a large and straggling hand, as though the pen were no longer under its usual firm control, concludes with these touching words: “I am now very feeble. My eyes are dim, and my memory fails me. I have done no duty on the sabbath for some weeks through weakness. When I review all the way the Lord has led me through this wilderness I am constrained to say, Bless the Lord, O my soul, etc,

The innocent games of children pleased him to the last. When such meetings were more rare than they have now become, the children of the Paramatta school once a year assembled on his lawn, and then his happiness was almost equal to their own. In his own family, and amongst the children of his friends, he would even take his share in their youthful gambols, and join the merry party at blind man’s buff. Though, as he said of himself, he “never sang a song in his[Pg 266] life, for he learned to sing hymns when ten years old, and never sang anything else,” yet he was charmed with the sweet and hearty voices of children joining in some innocent little song, and it pleased him better still if it finished off with a noisy chorus. Yet all this was consistent with his character as a grave, wise old man. Though mirthful, he was never frivolous; in a moment, if occasion called for it, he was ready to discuss the most serious subjects, or to give his opinion upon matters of importance; and he had the enviable talent of mingling even pious conversation with the sports of children.

It was observed that though always unembarrassed in the presence of strangers whatever their rank or importance might be, he never seemed completely happy but in the company of persons of true piety. He does not appear to have spoken very freely in ordinary society on the subject of personal religion, still less on the subject of his own experience; but his emotions were deep, and out of the fulness of the heart his lips would speak, in the midst of such a circle, of the loving-kindness of the Lord. The sense of his own unworthiness seems to have been always present. Of all God’s servants he might have been, as he verily thought himself to be, the most unprofitable; and when any circumstance occurred which led him to contrast the justice of God to others who were left to die impenitent, with the mercy shown to himself, he spoke with a humiliation deeply affecting. With scenes of vice and human depravity few living men were more conversant than he, yet to the last such was the delicacy of his conscience that the presence of vice shocked him as much as if the sight were new. “Riding down to the barracks one morning,” says the[Pg 267] lady whose narrative we have already quoted, “to invite Captain B—— and myself that day to dinner to meet the bishop, he had passed what, alas! used to be too frequent an object, a man lying insensible and intoxicated in the road. His usually cheerful countenance was saddened, and after telling us his errand, we could not but ask the cause of his distress. He gave us the unhappy cause, and turning his horse’s head round to leave us, he uttered with deep emotion—

Throughout the day the subject dwelt upon his mind; after dinner the conversation turned to it, and he was casually asked who was the author of the hymn he had quoted in the morning. He shook his head and said, ‘I cannot tell, perhaps it was Watts, or Wesley,’ and several hymn books were produced in which the bishop and others instituted a fruitless search, the bishop at length saying, ‘I can’t find the hymn, Mr. Marsden.’ ‘Can’t you, sir,’ was the reply, ‘that is a pity, for it is a good hymn, sir—says what the Bible says, free sovereign grace for poor sinners. No self-righteous man can get into heaven, sir, he would rather starve than take the free gift.’ In the course of the day the conversation turning upon New Zealand, the bishop expressed the opinion, once almost universal though now happily exploded, an opinion, too, which Mr. Marsden himself had regarded with some favour in his younger days, that civilization must precede the introduction of the gospel; and his lordship argued, as Mr. Marsden himself had argued thirty years before, in favour of expanding the mind of savages by the introduction of arts and sciences, being impressed with the idea that it was impossible to present the gospel[Pg 268] with success to minds wholly unenlightened. Mr. Marsden’s answer is thus recorded—‘Civilization is not necessary before Christianity, sir; do both together if you will, but you will find civilization follow Christianity, easier than Christianity to follow civilization. Tell a poor heathen of his true God and Saviour, point him to the works he can see with his own eyes, for these heathen are no fools, sir—great mistake to send illiterate men to them—they don’t want men learned after the fashion of this world, but men taught in the spirit and letter of the Scripture. I shan’t live to see it, sir, but I may hear of it in heaven, that New Zealand with all its cannibalism and idolatry will yet set an example of Christianity to some of the nations now before her in civilization.’”

It will not be out of place to offer a passing remark upon Mr. Marsden’s conduct to Dr. Broughton, the first bishop of Sydney. As an Episcopalian, sincerely attached to the church of England, he had long desired the introduction of the episcopate into the colonial church, of which, as senior chaplain, he himself had been the acknowledged leader for so many years. When the appointment was made it was a matter of just surprise to his friends that he was passed over in silence, while an English clergyman was placed over him to govern the clergy, amongst whom he had so long presided, and whose entire respect and confidence he had gained. There is no doubt that his integrity and fearless honesty had rendered him somewhat unacceptable to men in power, and that to this his exclusion is, in a great measure, to be ascribed. But this slight brought out some of the finest features in his truly noble character. He had never sought either honours, wealth, or preferment for himself. If[Pg 269] a disinterested man ever lived it was Samuel Marsden. The only remark which his family remember to have heard him make upon the subject was in answer to a friend, who had expressed surprise at the slight thus put upon him, in these words—“It is better as it is; I am an old man; my work is almost done.” And when Dr. Broughton, the new bishop, arrived in the colony, he was received by Mr. Marsden not with cold and formal respect but with Christian cordiality. When the new bishop was installed he assisted at the solemn service; the eloquent author of the “Prisoners of Australia,”[K] who chanced to be present, thus describes the scene—“On a more touching sight mine eyes had never looked than when the aged man, tears streaming down his venerable cheek, poured forth, amidst a crowded and yet silent assemblage, the benediction upon him into whose hands he had thus, as it were, to use his own metaphor, ‘yielded up the keys of a most precious charge;’ a charge which had been his own devoted care throughout the storms and the tempests of a long and difficult pilotage. And now like another Simeon, his work well nigh accomplished, the gospel spreading far and wide over the colony and its dependencies, and the prayer of his adopted people answered, he could say without another wish, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’” Though differing from him, we may add, on some points, Mr. Marsden retained to the last sincere regard for bishop Broughton, who in return fully appreciated the high and lofty character of his senior chaplain. “Well!” said he one day when he heard of his last illness, breaking out after a thoughtful silence, “if there ever was a truly honest man, [Pg 270]Mr. Marsden certainly is one;” and after his death he publicly expressed his “deep sense of the loss he had experienced, and the painful void he felt in the absence of his aged and faithful companion who had so often stood by his side, whose genuine piety and natural force of understanding,” said he, “I held in the highest esteem while he lived, and still retain them in sincerely affectionate remembrance.”

Conscious that in the course of nature his decease could not be far distant, death was now his frequent meditation. He viewed its approach without levity and without alarm. Familiar through life with death in every form, his feelings were not blunted; he still felt it was a solemn thing to die, but he had experienced the love of Him who had tasted death for every man, and was no longer “subject to bondage through fear of death.” He continued his pastoral visits to the sick and dying to the last, and some of those who were raised from a bed of languishing, and who survived their pastor, speak of the affectionate kindness, the delicacy and tenderness, as well as the deep-toned spirituality of mind he showed in the sick chamber, as something which those who had not witnessed it would be backward to credit. One of the last letters which he penned filled three sides of folio paper, addressed to a friend who had met with a severe accident in being thrown from a carriage; it contained the most consoling and Scriptural aids and admonitions; it was unfortunately lost by its possessor on a voyage to India, or it would have proved, we are assured, an acquisition to our memoir, of real interest and importance.

As he stepped out of his gig, his family easily perceived from his manner if he had been visiting the[Pg 271] chamber of death, and never presumed to break a sacred silence that was sure to follow his deep-drawn sigh till he was pleased to do so himself. This he did in general by the solemn and subdued utterance of a text from Scripture, or some verse of a favourite hymn. The tears often fell down his aged cheeks while slowly articulating, in a suppressed voice, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord;” or from one of Watts’s hymns.

After this touching relief he seemed to feel more at liberty to speak on future events connected with his own decease, when he should be sitting down, as he frequently said, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. Indeed his happy, social spirit led him to connect the joys of heaven with the society of saints and patriarchs and his own departed friends. Sitting at dinner with the bishop and others as his guests, his mind abstracted itself from the surrounding scene, and he addressed the Christian friend to whose notices of his last days we have already had recourse: “You know, madam, you and I are to take an alphabetical list some day of all the names of the good men I expect soon to meet in heaven; there will be (counting them up upon his fingers) John Wesley, Isaac Watts, the two Milners, Joseph and Isaac, John Newton and Thomas Scott, Mr. Howels of Long Acre, and Matthew Henry——” Here the conversation of the party broke off the solemn reverie.

Yet all this tranquillity was consistent with that natural fear of death which for the wisest purposes God has implanted in man, and which Adam must have known in paradise, or else the Divine prohibition and the threatened penalty, “in the day that thou eatest[Pg 272] thereof thou shalt surely die,” could have had no force and appealed to no motive. “In the month of September, after his last voyage, he called at the house of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Cartwright, with a young lady from New Zealand, to introduce her to Mrs. Cartwright. The door was opened by his aged and now deeply afflicted friend and brother in the ministry, for Mrs. Cartwright had expired in the night, after a few hours’ illness. Mr. Marsden, with his usual cheerfulness of manner, said, ‘Well! I have brought Miss W. to introduce her to Mrs. Cartwright.’ ‘Stop! stop, my friend,’ responded the mourner, in a solemn manner, ‘don’t you know that Mrs. Cartwright is dead?’ ‘Dead? dead?’ replied Mr. Marsden. ‘Oh no; oh no. You must be in joke; it is too serious a matter to make a joke of, Mr. Cartwright.’ ‘Indeed,’ responded Mr. Cartwright, ‘it is too true. Come, and I will convince you,’ and then led him to the room where the remains of his departed wife lay. Mr. Marsden approached the body, saying, ‘Oh! she is not dead; no, no, she is not dead;’ (the bright complexion remaining unchanged), ‘she is not dead;’ and then, passing his hand over the face, the cold chill of death dissipated the delusion. ‘Yes, she is dead, she is dead,’ and leaving the room, he hurried away to give vent to his feelings.”

As he contemplated his own near approach to the eternal state, a few chosen passages of Scripture fell often from his lips; and it was remarked they were almost the only repetitions he made use of; for his mind was richly stored with Scripture, which he seemed to bring forth with endless variety, and often in the happiest combination; but now he often repeated the[Pg 273] words of Job, “He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not,” chap. xiv. 2. And those of Zechariah, “Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?” chap. i. 5.

Like Cornelius, he had been a devout man, a man of prayer through life. He believed in the promises of effectual aid from God the Holy Spirit, to carry on the work of grace in his own soul. Nerved with this faith, he waged a ceaseless war against corruptions within, and temptations from without. And while he viewed the promises of assistance from the Holy Spirit, as given not to supersede our own exertions, but to animate them, he simply trusted to Him to become the author of his complete sanctification. And all the blessed fruits of faith were found richly clustering round his character. It was his constant habit, after his return from a journey, to spend some time in his room alone, engaged, no doubt, in holy communing with God. When he prayed in the family, or before his sermon in the pulpit, where he seldom used a form, the rich and fervid unction, the variety and copiousness of his supplications and thanksgivings, seemed to intimate how closely he had been wont to commune in secret with his heavenly Father. The fifty-first Psalm now often supplied the words for many a humble confession of sin, and many an earnest aspiration for larger supplies of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying influences, both in the pulpit and elsewhere. He appears always to have held frequent communion with God in ejaculatory prayer throughout the day. To one whose engagements were so many, and whose interruptions were necessarily so frequent, the practice was no doubt most beneficial. Thus[Pg 274] the lamp of God in his soul was always trimmed, and the light went not out as age and infirmities drew on. His friends now remarked his frequent abstraction from the scenes around, while his moving lip and solemn gesture significantly intimated the direction of his mind, and the occupation of his thoughts. His mind became daily more spiritual, and even when in the midst of visitors he seemed often to be absorbed in silent prayer.

“An incident which seems to show that he had a presentiment of his approaching end occurred on the last Sunday on which the holy communion was administered before his death. Although in his usual health, he did not assist in the service, as he always had done for a long period of forty-five years in the same congregation; and when the officiating minister was ready to distribute the bread and wine, he remained in his pew, apparently overcome by his feelings. A pause ensued, when, as he still did not attempt to move, the Rev. Henry Bobart, his son-in-law, thought it advisable to take the elements to him. Many of his congregation were affected to tears, impressed with the belief that they might not again receive from his venerable hands those emblems of the Saviour’s love. He had never yet been present at the church without assisting at the solemn rite. Such fears were but too truly and sadly realized. On the Sunday evening, at the parsonage, it was the custom, at family worship, to read one of a course of sermons. The Sunday before his death, when he was still apparently as well as usual, he requested that the one in course for that evening might be laid aside and Bradley’s sermon the ‘Morrow unknown,’ from the text ‘Boast not thyself of to-morrow,’ substituted. Some slight objection was made; but on his again expressing his[Pg 275] wish, it was of course complied with. The remarks made by him upon the subject during the evening excited the apprehensions of his family that the coming week might be one of trial, but they little thought that ere the next sabbath one so loved and revered would be removed from them.”

On Tuesday the 8th of May, 1838, a few of his friends visited him at his own house; he wore his usual cheerfulness, and they wished him, as they thought, a short farewell as he stepped into his gig on a journey of about five and-twenty-miles. In passing through the low lands contiguous to Windsor, the cold suddenly affected him, and he complained of illness on his arrival at the house of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Styles, the chaplain of the parish. Erysipelas in the head broke out, and a general stupor followed, so that he became insensible. His mind wandered amongst the scenes to which his life had been devoted, and he uttered a few incoherent expressions about the factory, the orphan school, and the New Zealand mission. “Though he spoke but little,” says his friend, Mr. Styles, in his funeral sermon, “yet in his few conscious moments he said quite enough to show that the Saviour whom he served through life was with him in the time of trial. A single remark was made to him by a bystander on the value of a good hope in Christ in the hour of need. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘that hope is indeed precious to me now;’ and on the following evening, his last on earth, he was heard repeating the words ‘precious, precious,’ as if still in the same strain of thought which that remark had suggested. Soon after, inflammation having reached the brain, his spirit was released. On Saturday morning, the 12th of May, he entered—who can[Pg 276] doubt?—upon the enjoyment of his ‘eternal and exceeding great reward.’”

He was buried in his own churchyard at Paramatta. Upwards of sixty carriages formed the mourning train, and a numerous assemblage of mourners, including most of the public functionaries in the colony, followed him to the grave. Of these, some who had in years long past thwarted and opposed him came at last to offer an unfeigned tribute of deep respect. A few had been his early associates in the ministry, and in every good word and work. The majority were a youthful generation, to whom he was only known as a wise and venerable minister of God. His parishioners had been most of them brought up under his instructions, and had been taught from their infancy to look up to him with respect and love. The solemn burial service was read by the Rev. Dr. Cowper, who first came out to the colony at Mr. Marsden’s solicitation. He stood over the grave and addressed the mourners on the early devotedness of their departed friend and pastor to the great work of the ministry, told them how solemnly he had dedicated himself to God before he left England in his youth, and reminded them of the fidelity with which through evil and good report he had endured his Master’s cross, despising the shame.

Australia seemed at length fully to appreciate his worth. It was quite fitting, and indeed an additional tribute to his integrity, that some mutterings of calumny should be uttered by ungodly men, even as the grave closed over him, and that a priest of the apostate church of Rome should catch them up, and gladly give expression to them. With this exception the colony was unanimous, as were the friends of religion[Pg 277] in England, and throughout the world, in mourning for him as for one who had been great as an evangelist in the church of Christ, and as a philanthropist second to none who have ever devoted their lives to the welfare of their fellow creatures. It was proposed to erect a monument to his memory by public subscription; the proposition was warmly approved on all sides, and subscriptions were offered to a considerable amount. Whole families became subscribers—parents, and children, and domestic servants, all ready thus to testify their reverence. On further consideration, it was thought better to erect a church to his memory on a piece of his own land, which he himself had devised for that purpose, to which the name of Marsfield should be given; and the design, we believe, has been carried into effect, at the cost of about six thousand pounds.

The public press, not only in Australia but in England, published biographical sketches of his life and labours, with articles on his motives and character. The great missionary societies recorded his death with becoming feelings of reverential love. The notice of him in the minutes of the Church Missionary Society, the reader will not be displeased to find in these pages. It was read at their annual meeting at Exeter-hall, and published in their thirtieth report.

And thus was the man honoured in his death, whose life had been one long conflict with obloquy and slander. With few exceptions his enemies had died away, or been gradually led to abandon their prejudices, and many of them now loved and revered the man whom they had once hated or despised. This, however, is but the usual recompense of a life of consistent holiness. God often allows his servants to live and even to die under a cloud of prejudice; but sooner or later, even the world does homage to their virtues and confesses its admiration of the Christian character, while the church of Christ glorifies God in the grace which made their departed brother to shine as a light in the world.

CHAPTER XIV.

The reader may naturally expect in conclusion a summary of Mr. Marsden’s character. In attempting this, we are by no means insensible to the difficulty of the undertaking. Indiscriminate eulogy, and the arrogance which affects to blame in order to establish its own claim to superior wisdom, are both alike impertinent and unbecoming. Yet it is not easy to speak of one whose motives were so high, whose labours so constant and self-denying, and whose triumphs so remarkable, without enthusiasm. While, on the other hand, those infirmities which may generally be detected even in the best men, and which truth requires to be impartially noted down, did not much affect his public life; and we have felt all along as we have written with the disadvantage of having known him only by the report of others. Still, however, something should be attempted. The character of Mr. Marsden is too instructive to be lost; perhaps few great men ever lived whose example was more calculated for general usefulness,—for the simple reason that he displayed no gigantic powers, no splendid genius; he had only a solid, well ordered, mind, with which to work,—no other endowments than those which thousands of his fellow men possess. It was in the use of his materials that his greatness lay.

Mr. Marsden was a man of a masculine understanding, of great decision of character, and an energy which nothing could subdue. He naturally possessed[Pg 281] such directness and honesty of purpose, that his intentions could never be mistaken; and he seemed incapable of attempting to gain his purpose by those dexterous shifts and manœuvres which often pass current, even amongst professing Christians, as the proper, if not laudable, resources of a good diplomatist, or a thorough man of business. When he had an object in view, it was always worthy of his strenuous pursuit, and nothing stopped him in his efforts to obtain it, except the impossibility of proceeding further. Had his mind been less capacious such firmness would often have degenerated into mere obstinacy; had it been less benevolent and less under the influence of religion, it would have led him, as he pressed rudely onwards, to trample upon the feelings, perhaps upon the rights, of other men. But he seems, whenever he was not boldly confronting vice, to have been of the gentlest nature. In opposing sin, especially when it showed itself with effrontery in the persons of magistrates and men in power, he gave no quarter and asked for none. There was a quaintness and originality about him, which enabled him to say and do things which were impossible to other men. There was a firmness and inflexibility, combined with earnest zeal, which in the days of the reformers would have placed him in their foremost rank. None could be long in his society without observing that he was a man of another mould than those around him. There was an air of unconscious independence in all he did which, mixed with his other qualities, clearly showed to those who could read his character, that he was a peculiar instrument in the hands of God to carry out his own purposes. These traits are illustrated by many remarkable events in his life.

[Pg 282]When he first arrived in New South Wales, while theft, blasphemy, and every other crime, prevailed to an alarming extent among the convicts, the higher classes of society, the civil and military officers, set a disgraceful example of social immorality. Such is the account given by a Sydney periodical a few weeks after Mr. Marsden’s decease, which goes on to say: “Many an individual of a more plastic nature might have been moulded by the prevailing fashion of the age in which he lived, and instead of endeavouring to struggle against the tide of popular opinion, would have yielded in all probability to its seducing influence. Such was not the case with Mr. Marsden. When he was opposed on all hands, and even by the civil and military authorities of the day, he faithfully performed his duty, and careless of the powerful coalitions combined for his destruction, ‘all the ends he aimed at were his country’s, his God’s, and truth’s.’ Educated in the school of the Milners, the Simeons, and the Fletchers, he was not disposed to flatter the vices of any man; but with plainness and sincerity of speech, he discoursed ‘of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come.’” He has been known to rebuke sin at a dinner-table in such a manner as to electrify the whole company. Once, arriving late, he sat down in haste, and did not for a few minutes perceive the presence of one who should have been the wife of the host, but who stood in a very different relation to him. Mr. Marsden always turned a deaf ear to scandal, and in the excess of his charity was sometimes blind to facts which were evident enough to others. The truth now flashed upon him, and though such things were little thought of in the colony, he rose instantly from the table, calling to the servant in a decided tone to bring[Pg 283] his hat, and without further ceremony, or another word, retired. That such a man should raise up a host of bitter enemies is not to be wondered at.

To these qualities his great successes in life, under God, were due. The young chaplain who single handed confronted and at length bore down the profligacy of New South Wales, and the shameless partiality of its courts of justice (the immediate result and consequence of the licentious lives and connexions of the magistrates) planned, and was himself the first to adventure upon the mission to New Zealand. Against the rashness of this attempt the timid expostulations of his friends, the hesitation of the captains who declined so perilous an adventure, and even the remonstrances of Governor Macquarie himself weighed not a feather in the scale. He saw his way clearly; it was the path of duty, and along it he must go. And when, ten years afterwards, scarcely a nominal convert had been won from among the cannibals, when tens of thousands of good money had been spent, when the church at home was almost weary of the project, and half disposed to give it up, he was still true as ever to the cause. He neither bolstered up his courage with noisy protestations, nor attempted to cheer the languid zeal of others by the slightest exaggerations, but quietly went forward calmly resting upon the two great pillars, the commands and the promises of God. So again with respect to the Polynesian missions; at first he showed little of that enthusiasm in which some of its promoters were caught as in a whirlwind, and carried off their feet. But high principle endures when enthusiasm has long worn out. And it was to the firm and yet cheering remonstrances of Samuel Marsden, and to the weight which his representations had with the churches[Pg 284] of Christ in England, that the directors were indebted for the ability to maintain their ground, and that this perhaps the most successful of Protestant missions, was not finally abandoned upon the very eve of its triumphs.

While he embraced large and comprehensive projects, it was one of his striking peculiarities that he paid close attention to minute details. Some minds beginning with the vast and theoretical, work backwards into the necessary details; others setting out upon that which is minute and practical, from the necessities of the hour and the duties of the day before them seem to enlarge their circle and to build up new projects as they proceed. The former may be men of greater genius, but the latter are in general the more successful, and to these Mr. Marsden belonged. The cast of his mind was eminently practical. No crude visions of distant triumphs led him away from the duties which belonged to the scene and circumstances in which providence had placed him. Paramatta was for many years the model parish of New South Wales, although its pastor was the soul of the New Zealand mission, and of many a philanthropic enterprise besides. Commissioner Biggs, in his “Report of Inquiry,” which was published by order of the House of Commons, observes that “Mr. Marsden, though much occupied by the business of the missions which he conducted, and by the superintendence of the orphan school which he had himself called into existence, was remarkably attentive to the duties of his ministry.” “The congregation at Paramatta appeared to me to be more respectable than at the other places of worship, and the choral parts of the service were admirably performed by the singers, who have been taught under[Pg 285] the direction of the Rev. S. Marsden.” He was well known to all his parishioners, to whom he paid constant ministerial visits; his attention to the sick, whether at their own homes or the government hospital, was unremitting, and here his natural shrewdness, sharpened as it was by his spiritual penetration, showed itself in his insight into the true character of those he dealt with. Nothing disgusted him more than a want of reality. High professions from inconsistent lips were loathsome to him, and his rebukes were sometimes sharp. A gentleman, whose habits of life were not altogether consistent with Christian simplicity and deadness to the world, had been reading “Mammon,” when that volume had just made its appearance, and with that partial eye with which we are too apt to view our own failings, had come to the flattering conclusion that by contrast with the monster depicted in “Mammon,” the desires he felt to add field to field and house to house, were not covetousness, but that diligence in business which the Scriptures inculcate. In the happy excitement of the discovery, he exultingly exclaimed, “Well, thank God, I have no covetousness.” Mr. Marsden, who had read no more about covetousness than he found in the Bible, had sat silent; rising from his chair, and taking his hat, he merely said, “Well, I think it is time for me to go: and so, sir, you thank God that you are not as other men are. You have no covetousness? havn’t you? Why, sir, I suppose the next thing you’ll tell us is that you’ve no pride;” and left the room.

But when he spoke to a modest inquirer, these roughnesses, which lay only on the surface, disappeared. To the sick, his manner was gentle and affectionate, and in his later years, when he began, from[Pg 286] failing memory and dimness of sight, to feel himself unequal to the pulpit, he spent much of his time in going from house to house and amongst the prison population, exhorting and expounding the Scriptures. Upon one of these occasions, a friend who accompanied him relates that he made a short journey to visit a dying young lady, whose parents on some account were strangely averse to his intrusion, pastoral though it was. But the kindness with which he addressed the sufferer, whom he found under deep spiritual anxieties, and the soothing manner in which he spoke and prayed with her, instantly changed the whole bias of their minds. “To think,” they exclaimed when he left the house, “of the aged man, with his silver locks, coming such a distance as seventeen miles, and speaking so affectionately to our feeble child!”

“At Paramatta, his Sunday-school,” his daughter writes, “was in a more efficient state than any I have since seen;” and the same remark might probably be applied to his other parochial institutions, for whatever he did was done with all his heart; and he was one of those who easily find coadjutors. Their example seems to shed an immediate influence. And his curates and the pious members of his flock were scarcely less zealous and energetic than himself.

He found time to promote missionary meetings, and to encourage the formation of tract and Bible societies, as well as other benevolent institutions, at Sydney and other places. On many occasions he delivered interesting speeches, and not long before his death he presided at a Bible Society meeting at Paramatta, when, in the course of an affectionate address, he alluded to his beloved New Zealand. New Zealand was near his heart, and he now seldom spoke of it[Pg 287] without being sensibly affected. Relating an anecdote respecting Mowhee, a converted New Zealander, he was completely overcome, and burst into tears.

His manner of preaching was simple, forcible, and persuasive, rather than powerful or eloquent. In his later years, when he was no longer able to read his sermons, he preached extempore. His memory, until the last year or two of his life, was remarkably tenacious: he used to repeat the whole of the burial service memoriter, and in the pulpit, whole chapters or a great variety of texts from all parts of Scripture, as they were required to prove or illustrate his subject. He was seldom controversial, nor did he attempt a critical exposition of the word of God. His ministry was pure and evangelical. “You can well remember him, my hearers,” says the preacher, in his funeral sermon, “as having faithfully preached to you the word of God; clearly did he lay before you the whole counsel of God. Man was represented by him as in a condemned and helpless state, lying in all the pollution and filthiness of his sin, totally unable to justify himself wholly or in part, by any works of righteousness which he can do; God, as too pure to look upon iniquity without abhorrence, and yet too merciful to leave sinners to their sad estate without providing a refuge for them; Christ, as All in all to the sinner; as wisdom to enlighten him, as righteousness to justify him, sanctification to make him holy in heart and life, as complete redemption from the bondage of sin and death into the glorious inheritance of heaven; the Holy Spirit of God as the only author of aught that is good in the renewed soul; faith as the only means of applying the salvation of the gospel to the case of the individual sinner; justification by faith; the[Pg 288] necessity of regeneration; holiness indispensable. All these were represented by your departed minister as the vital doctrines of the gospel, and the mutual bearing and connexion of each was clearly shown. And this he has been doing for nearly forty-five years.”

Dwelling on the outskirts of civilization and of the Christian world, he was too deeply impressed with the grand line of distinction between Christianity and hideous ungodliness, whether exhibited in the vices of a penal settlement or the cannibalism of New Zealand, to be likely to attach too much importance to those minor shades of difference which are to be met with in the great family of Jesus Christ. As his heart was large, so too was his spirit catholic. He was sincerely and affectionately attached to the church of England. He revered her liturgy, and in her articles and homilies he found his creed, and he laboured much to promote her extension. Yet his heart was filled with love to all those who name the name of Christ in sincerity. Wherever he met with the evidences of real piety and soundness of doctrine, his house and his purse flew open; and orthodox Christians of every denomination from time to time either shared his hospitalities or were assisted in their benevolent projects with pecuniary aid. With what delicacy this was done may be gathered from such statements as the following, which is copied from the “Colonist” newspaper, September 12th, 1838: “An attempt having been made to build a Scotch church in Sydney, the colonial government for a time opposed the scheme, and in consequence some of its friends fell away. Then it was that the late Samuel Marsden, unsolicited, very generously offered the loan of 750l. to the trustees of the Scotch church, on the security of the building and for its[Pg 289] completion. This loan was accordingly made; but as it was found impracticable to give an available security on the building, Mr. Marsden agreed to take the personal guarantee of the minister for the debt.”

In the same spirit he presented the Wesleyan Methodists with a valuable piece of land on which to erect a chapel, at Windsor. This act of Christian charity was acknowledged by their missionaries in a grateful letter. Mr. Marsden’s reply is full of warmth and feeling. “You express your acknowledgment for the ground at Windsor to build your chapel and house upon. I can only say I feel much pleasure in having it in my power to meet your wishes in this respect. To give you the right hand of fellowship is no more than my indispensable duty; and were I to throw the smallest difficulty in your way I should be highly criminal and unworthy the Christian name, more especially considering the present circumstances of these extensive settlements, ‘where the harvest is so great and the labourers are so few.’ ... The importation of convicts from Europe is very great every year; hundreds have just landed on our shores from various parts of the British empire, hundreds are now in the harbour ready to be disembarked, and hundreds more on the bosom of the great deep are hourly expected. These exiles come to us laden with the chains of their sins, and reduced to the lowest state of human wretchedness and depravity. We must not expect that magistrates and politicians can find a remedy for the dreadful moral diseases with which the convicts are infected. The plague of sin, when it has been permitted to operate on the human mind with all its violence and poison, can never be cured, and seldom restrained by the wisest human laws and regulations. Heaven itself has provided the only remedy[Pg 290] for sin—the blessed balm in Gilead; to apply any other remedy is lost labour. In recommending this at all times and in all places, we shall prevail upon some to try its effect; and whoever do this we know they will be healed in the selfsame hour. I pray that the Divine blessing may attend all your labours for the good of immortal souls in these settlements.”

His private charities displayed the same catholic spirit. His disinterestedness was great, and his only desire seemed to be to assist the deserving or to retrieve the lost. He was not foolishly indifferent to the value of money, as those who had business transactions with him were well aware; but its chief value in his eyes consisted in the opportunities it gave him to promote the happiness of others. Hundreds of instances of his extraordinary liberality might be mentioned, and it is probable that many more are quite unknown. The following anecdotes, furnished by his personal friends, will show that his bounty was dealt out with no sparing hand.

A gentleman, at whose house he was a visitor, happened to express a wish that he had three hundred pounds to pay off a debt. The next morning Mr. Marsden came down and presented him with the money, taking no acknowledgment. The circumstance would have remained unknown had not the obliged person, after Mr. Marsden’s decease, honourably sent an acknowledgment to his executors. All he assisted were not equally grateful. Travelling with a friend in his carriage, a vehicle passed by. “Paddy,” said he, calling to his servant, “who is that?” On being told, “Oh,” said he, “he borrowed from me two hundred pounds, and he never paid me.” This was his only remark.

[Pg 291]Yet he was not tenacious for repayment, nor indeed exact in requiring it at all where he thought the persons needy and deserving. The same friend was with him when a man called to pay up the interest on a considerable sum which Mr. Marsden had lent to him. He took a cheque for the amount, but when the person retired, tore it up and threw it into the fire, remarking, “He is an honest man. I am satisfied if he returns me the principal; that is all I want.”

On another occasion, a friend who had been requested to make an advance of fifty pounds to a needy person, but was unable to do so, mentioned the case to Mr. Marsden, with, “Sir, can you lend me fifty pounds?” “To be sure I can,” was the answer, and the money was instantly produced. When he called, shortly afterwards, to repay the loan, Mr. Marsden had forgotten all about it. “Indeed I never looked to its being repaid.”

The Rev——, being pressed for a hundred pounds, walking with Mr. Marsden, mentioned his difficulties. Mr. Marsden at once gave him a hundred pounds, simply remarking, “I dare say that will do for you.”

A lady had come to the colony at the solicitation of her family, with the view of establishing a school of a superior class for the daughters of the colonists. At first she met with little success. Mr. Marsden saw the importance of her scheme, and at once invited her to Paramatta, offering her a suitable house and all the pecuniary aid she might require, and this under the feeling of a recent disappointment in an undertaking of the same nature.

Of the large sums he expended on the New Zealand mission from his own private resources it is impossible even to conjecture the amount, to say nothing of a[Pg 292] life in a great measure devoted to the service. He one day called upon a young man of enterprise and piety, whom he was anxious to induce to settle in New Zealand, and offered him fifty pounds per annum out of his own purse, as well as to raise a further sum for him from other sources. Nor should it be forgotten, in proof of this disinterestedness, that with all his opportunities and influence in New Zealand, he never possessed a single acre of land there, or sought the slightest advantage either for himself or for any member of his family.

Another feature in his character was his unaffected humility. This was not in him the nervous weakness which disqualifies some men for vigorous action, rendering them either unconscious of their power, or incapable of maintaining and asserting their position, and consequently of discharging its obligations. This, though often called humility, is, in fact, disease, and ought to be resisted rather than indulged. Mr. Marsden’s mind was vigorous and healthy; he took a just measure of his powers and opportunities, as the use he put them to proves abundantly. There was nothing in him of the shyness which disqualifies for public life; he was bold without effrontery, courageous without rashness, firm without obstinacy; but withal he was a humble man. His private correspondence will have shown the reader how anxious he was to submit his own judgment, even on questions affecting his personal character, to what he considered the better judgment of his friends at home. To vanity or ostentation he seems to have been a perfect stranger. There is not a passage in his correspondence, nor can we learn that a word ever fell from his lips, which would lead us to suppose that he ever thought him[Pg 293]self in any way an extraordinary man. Flattery disgusted him, and even moderate praise was offensive to his feelings. When the life of his friend, Dr. Mason Good, appeared from the pen of Dr. Olinthus Gregory, it contained an appendix, giving an account of his own labours and triumphs at Paramatta and in New Zealand. This he cut out of the volume with his penknife, without any remark, before he permitted it to lie upon his table or to be read by his family. He was so far from thinking he had accomplished much, either in the colony or amongst the heathen, that he was rather disposed, in his later days, to lament that his life had been almost useless; and indeed he was heard more than once to express a doubt whether he had not mistaken his calling, and been no better than an intruder into the sacred ministry. Perhaps failing health and spirits were in part the cause of these misgivings, but his unfeigned humility had a deeper root. It originated in that evangelical piety upon which all his usefulness was built. He saw the holiness of God, he saw his Divine perfection reflected in his law, and though he had a clear, abiding sense of his adoption through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, this did not interfere with a clear conception too of his own unworthiness. When told one day, by a justly indignant friend, how basely he was misrepresented, “Sir,” he exclaimed, and the solemnity of his manner showed the depth of his meaning, “these men don’t know the worst. Why, sir, if I were to walk down the streets of Paramatta with my heart laid bare, the very boys would pelt me.”

Such was Samuel Marsden, a man whose memory is to be revered and his example imitated. “Not merely a good man,” says the preacher of his funeral sermon,[Pg 294] “who filled up the place allotted to him on earth, and then sank into his grave; not merely a faithful minister of Christ, who loved and served his Saviour and turned many to repentance, but more than either of these. Rightly to estimate his character we must view him as a peculiar man, raised up for an especial purpose.” And he adds—

APPENDIX I.

The great work of Mr. Marsden’s life was undoubtedly the New Zealand mission; but he was also, as we have seen, the early friend, the wise adviser, and not unfrequently the generous host of that devoted band of men who first essayed the introduction of the gospel to the Society Islands. Each of these missions has been attended with astonishing success; each has produced what may be called magnificent results,—results which already far exceed, in some respects, the most sanguine hopes, extravagant as at the time they seemed to be, of Mr. Marsden and his early coadjutors some fifty years ago. Yet in other respects their disappointment would have been great had they lived to witness the present state of things, whether in New Zealand or Tahiti. Instead of native tribes growing up into Christian brotherhood, and asserting a national independence, these beautiful islands have bowed to a foreign yoke. Instead of native churches they have rather assumed the form of offshoots and dependencies of British churches. A great work has been accomplished, and its fruits will never cease to ripen. But events have occurred which only prophets could have foreseen; changes have taken place which neither political sagacity nor the saintly wisdom of those good men who first projected our foreign missions amidst storms of insult, or, what was worse to bear, the[Pg 296] withering influences of a contemptuous neglect, anticipated. It is often so in this world’s history. Our successes, our trials, the events which happen to us, our national history, and that of the church of Christ, scoop out for themselves fresh channels, and flow still onwards, but in the direction perhaps least of all expected.

Our readers are, we trust, so far interested in the details already given as to desire some further acquaintance with the later history of these great missions since Mr. Marsden’s death. This we propose to give, briefly of course, for the subject would fill a volume; and such a volume, whenever it shall be written well and wisely, will be received with delight by every intelligent member of the whole catholic church of Christ.

Attempts to colonize upon a large scale, attended with constant aggressions upon the native tribes, had occurred before Mr. Marsden’s death, and awakened his anxiety. A New Zealand Company was formed in 1839, with the avowed object of purchasing land from the Maories, and settling large tracts of the island with English emigrants. It made no provision for the spiritual welfare of the natives, nor indeed for that of the European settlers; and it was evident that, however well-intentioned, the project in the hands of a mercantile company would be effected, as such schemes always have been effected, only at the cost of injustice and oppression to the natives. Meanwhile danger was threatening from another quarter. Louis Philippe now sat upon the throne of France. Though not ambitious of military conquest, he was[Pg 297] cunning and unprincipled, and anxious to extend the power of France by force or fraud. Her colonial possessions she had lost during her long war with England, and now scarcely one of them remained. He saw and coveted the islands of the Southern Ocean, and resolved to repair his colonial empire by the addition of these splendid and inviting prizes. It was said, and we believe with truth, that a frigate was already equipped and on the very point of sailing for New Zealand with secret orders to annex that island to the crown of France, when the English government, tardily and with sincere reluctance, resolved to anticipate the project and claim New Zealand for the queen of England. This was done, and the island was formally annexed to the English crown, and in January, 1842, became an English colony.

For once the story of colonial annexation is neither darkened with crime nor saddened with war and bloodshed. The measure was essential both to the security of the natives and to the work of the Protestant missions. Lawlessness and anarchy were universal: the Maori tribes were slaughtering one another; the white man was slaughtering the Maori tribes. For the native laws were obsolete, and the laws of England no man yet had the power to enforce.

There was, too, on the part of England, and it was strongly expressed in the British parliament, a determination to secure, as far as possible, not only the safety but the independence of the natives under their old chiefs, and to leave them in possession of their ancient usages and forms of government. In fact, the authority of queen Victoria was to be that of a mild protectorate rather than an absolute sovereignty. The chiefs were to acknowledge the supremacy of the[Pg 298] crown as represented in the governor. To him, and not as heretofore to the field of battle, with its horrors and cannibalism, were their disputes to be referred; and in all doubtful questions English law, its maxims and analogies, were to be held supreme. Upon these easy terms the most fastidious will find little to blame in our annexation of New Zealand. The Maories did not exceed, it was computed, one hundred thousand souls. Suppose they had been twice that number, still they could scarcely be said to occupy the whole of an island of the size of Ireland, and quite as fruitful. There was still room for a vast influx of Europeans, leaving to the natives wide tracts of land far beyond their wants, either for tillage or the chase, or for a nomad wandering life, had this been the habit of the Maories. And when the threatened seizure by France is thrown into the scale, few Protestants, of whatever nation they may be, will hesitate to admit that the conduct of England in this instance was both wise and just.

The Maories in general accepted this new state of things with satisfaction. Those of them who resided on the coast and in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands saw that the aggression of the colonists was restrained, and that their own safety was secured. Further in the interior, where the want of an English protectorate was less felt, heart-burnings occurred, fomented, as usual, by designing men, and aggravated by the occasional outrage of individuals. Some of the tribes resisted, and a war broke out, though happily neither bloody nor of long duration, in which the Maories maintained the reputation of their native valour, even against English regiments. Nor was it till the year 1849 that the peace of the island and the[Pg 299] supremacy of the English crown were perfectly restored and asserted.

For a time the progress of the gospel was triumphant. For example, archdeacon William Williams could report that the number of communicants in the eastern district, beneath his care, had risen from twenty-nine in 1840, to two thousand eight hundred and ninety-three in 1850; and these were “members of the congregation who were supposed to walk in the narrow way. Here then,” he exclaims, “is abundant encouragement; the little one is become a thousand. In the course of ten years, there has been time for the novelty of Christianity to wear away; but, while some are gone back again to the beggarly elements of the world, hitherto the Lord has blessed his vineyards with increase.” In other districts the progress of the gospel was equally gratifying. At Tauranga, out of a population not exceeding two thousand four hundred, upwards of eight hundred partook of the Lord’s supper; and yet there were many native Christians who, from various causes, had been kept away from this ordinance. Other denominations of Protestant Christians had likewise their trophies to exhibit to the “praise of his grace,” who had crowned their labours with success. “The facilities,” reports one missionary, upon the eastern coast, “the facilities for usefulness are great; the coast might become one of the most interesting missionary gardens in the world. Crowds can be got together at any time for catechizing; the dear children are all anxious for schooling; the native teachers and monitors put themselves quite under your hands; and they are, I think, a very improving and improvable class.”

Similar reports reached home from almost every[Pg 300] station in New Zealand. At the intervention of a missionary of the church of England, a Wesleyan missionary, and an English lay gentleman, (the surveyor-general,) the Waikato and Wangaroa tribes, bent on mutual slaughter, laid down their arms at the instant the battle should have joined. They had had their war-dance; some random shots had even been fired; their mediators had begun to despair; when at length, towards evening, they agreed to leave the subject in dispute between them (the right to a piece of land), to Sir George Grey, the governor, and Te Werowero, a native chieftain, for arbitration. The question was put to the whole army, “Do you agree to this?” Four hundred armed natives answered with one voice, assenting. The question was put a second time, and they again gave their consent. “The surveyor-general giving the signal, we all,” says the missionary, “gave three hearty cheers; after which the natives assembled for evening-prayers, and,” he adds, “I trust I felt thankful.” The accounts that reached England, filled men’s hearts with astonishment; even upon the spot, men long enured to the spiritual warfare with idolatry, were amazed at the greatness of their triumph. They wrote home in strains such as the following.

New Zealand was at length, outwardly at least, a Christian land. Bishop Selwyn had, in 1842, taken charge of the church of England and the oversight of her missions, and other denominations assumed a fixed and settled character. The missionary began to merge and disappear in the stated minister. The ancient warrior chieftain too, was fading fast from sight; and we cannot deny that, savage as he was, we part from him with some feelings of respect. Who that has a heart to feel, or any imagination capable of being warmed by strains of exquisite pathos, can read unmoved the last words of the dying Karepa? The scene is in the lonely village of Te Hawera, of which he was the chief. Mr. Colenzo, the missionary, arrived just as his people, with loud cries, sitting around his new-made tomb, bewailed his departure. At night they gathered around their spiritual father in his tent, and one of the natives thus related the last words of Karepa.

But New Zealand was now passing through a dangerous crisis. The Maori ceased to exist in his savage state. Cannibalism was a mere tradition. Of the ancient superstitions scarcely a trace was left. European arts and manners were introduced in almost every part of the island, and New Zealand took her place amongst other civilized communities. Still, under new circumstances fresh dangers threatened her. The church of Rome saw from afar and coveted so glorious a possession; and in the course of a single year a[Pg 304] Romish bishop and sixteen priests landed at Wellington, and a second bishop with his troop of priests and nuns at Auckland. For a while the childish simplicity of the Maori character, fond of show and a stranger to suspicion, gave them great advantage; and the missionaries of evangelical churches viewed their progress with serious apprehension. But as the novelty wore off the Maori Christian discovered that Popery was but a hollow pretence, without heart, or life, or abiding consolation, and whole tribes which had been led astray returned with their chiefs to purer churches in search of better pasturage. Lately the translation of the whole of the Bible has been completed, and in this we have the best antidote, under God, to the progress of this baneful superstition. New Zealand, too, besides its several Protestant bishops of the church of England, its zealous missionaries, and stated ministers of every evangelical denomination, has now at length a native ministry of her own Maories, few as yet in number, but holy men, men of competent learning and gifts of utterance, who have evidently been called of God. One of these, the Rev. Riwai Te Ahu, who was ordained by Bishop Selwyn, is not only highly esteemed by all the natives of whatever tribe they may be, but by the English too; and he is entirely supported by internal resources, by regular contributions from the natives, and a private grant from the governor himself. We can understand something of the joy with which an honoured missionary, one of the oldest labourers in the field, sat and listened in the house of prayer while he officiated, assisted by the Rev. Rota Waitoa, the only two Maori ministers of the church of England in New Zealand, and his own early converts, “the one reading prayers, and[Pg 305] the other preaching an admirable sermon to his own native tribe.” Other churches have similar triumphs. The Wesleyans have three native assistant ministers, and probably these are not all, for it may be presumed that a great work is going forward in so large an island, of which our missionary societies have no official reports, and by agents who are no longer responsible to them. Thus it is often found that in the interior some village or hamlet has become Christian where no European missionary was ever seen. Native converts have done their own work.

Still the church in New Zealand is in an infant state, surrounded by many dangers. The influx of Europeans, the sudden increase of wealth and luxury, the introduction of a new and foreign literature from England, bearing as it were upon its wings all that is bad as well as all that is lovely and of good report in theology, politics, and morals, may well cause, as indeed it does create, the deepest concern to those who have at heart the purity of the Maori faith, and the continued progress of the gospel. It is not for those who know that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to doubt for a moment of its ultimate success; but the firmest faith may, at the same time, be apprehensive and anxious, if not alarmed, for the fiery trial that awaits her,—not of persecution, but of wealth and luxury, and the sad example of every European vice. Let the reader help them with his prayers.

We cannot close our sketch of the progress of Christianity in New Zealand, without some allusion to the Canterbury Association, one of the most remarkable attempts of modern times to colonize on Christian principles, or rather perhaps we should say, to[Pg 306] carry abroad the old institutions of England, and plant them as it were full blown in a new country. The design was not altogether original, for the New England puritans of the seventeenth century, had led the way, in their attempts to colonize at Boston and in New England, in the days of Charles I. They would have carried out the principles, and worship of the Brownites to the exclusion of other sects, though happily for the freedom of religion, their design was soon found to be impracticable, and was only partially accomplished. The Canterbury Association was formed on high church of England principles, “avowedly for the purpose of founding a settlement, to be composed in the first instance of members of that church, or at least of those who did not object to its principles.” Its early friends now admit that their project was, in some of its parts, utopian and impracticable. The idea, if ever seriously entertained, of excluding by a test of church membership those whose profession differed from their own was abandoned by most of the colonists as soon as they had set foot on the shores of New Zealand. In 1848, Otakou or Otago, in the southern part of the Middle Island, was colonized by an association of members of the Free Church of Scotland; and in 1850, the first colonists were sent out to the church of England settlement, founded in the vicinity of Banks’s Peninsula, by the Canterbury Association. The site made choice of possessed a harbour of its own, an immense extent of land, which it was supposed might easily be brought under cultivation, and removed from danger of disturbance from the natives, of whom there were but few, an extent of grazing country unequalled in New Zealand, and a territory “every way available for being formed into[Pg 307] a province, with a separate legislature.” The plan was to sell the land at an additional price, and appropriate one third of the cost to ecclesiastical purposes. The sums thus realized by sales of land, were to be placed at the disposal of an ecclesiastical committee, who were empowered to make such arrangements as they might think fit to organize an endowed church in the colony. A bishopric was to be at once endowed, a college, if not a cathedral, was to be connected with it, a grammar-school of the highest class, was to be opened as well as commercial schools; and all the luxuries of English country life, including good roads, snug villas, well cultivated farms; and good society, were to be found by the future settler, after a very few years of probationary toil.

The scheme was warmly taken up at home, and within a single twelvemonth from the 16th December, 1850, when the first detachment arrived, nearly three thousand emigrants had seated themselves in the Canterbury Plains. The towns of Lyttelton and Christchurch were founded, and operations on a large scale were fairly begun. Of course bitter disappointment followed, as it too often does with the early colonists, whose expectations are unduly raised by the romantic stories told them in England. But we must quote a passage from “Archdeacon Paul’s Letters from Canterbury,” just published. It may be of use to other emigrants, into whatever region of the world they go. “Restless spirits, who had never yet been contented anywhere, expected to find tranquillity in this new Arcadia, where their chief occupation would be to recline under the shadow of some overhanging rock, soothing their fleecy charge with the shepherd’s pipe, remote from fogs and taxation and all the thousand[Pg 308] nameless evils which had made their lives a burthen to them at home.

Long wearisome rides and walks in search of truant sheep and cattle; bivouacs night after night, on the damp cold ground; mutton, damper, (a kind of coarse biscuit,) and tea (and that colonial tea) at breakfast, dinner, and supper, day after day, and week after week, and month after month; wanderings in trackless deserts, with a choice of passing the night on some bleak mountain side or wading through an unexplored swamp; and, after all this labour, finding perhaps that his flock are infected, and that no small amount of money as well as toil must be expended before he can hope for any profit at all;—these are the real experiences of a settler’s early days in a young pastoral colony.”

Yet, upon the whole, the founders of the settlement consider that it has answered all reasonable expectations. None of the early settlers have been driven home by the failure of their prospects, and few have been so even from qualified disappointment. The plains of Canterbury have a thoroughly English look, dotted in every direction with comfortable farm-houses, well-cultivated inclosures, and rickyards filled with the produce of the harvest: and the great seaport of the colony, Lyttelton, is well filled with shipping. Christchurch boasts at length its college, incorporated and endowed. It became an episcopal see, too, in 1856, under the first bishop of Christchurch; it has[Pg 309] its grammar school and Sunday schools. Here, too, as well as at Lyttelton, the Wesleyans have taken root, and, besides chapels, have their day and Sunday schools. From the first, the Scotch Church was represented by some enterprising settlers. The decorum of religion is everywhere perceptible; “I believe,” writes a nobleman, whose name stands at the head of the Association, “that no English colony, certainly none of modern days, and I hardly except those of the seventeenth century has been better supplied with the substantial means of religious worship and education. No one doubts the great material prosperity and promise of the colony; and no one denies that it is the best and most English-like society in all our colonies.... Sometimes a very vain notion has been entertained that we meant or hoped to exclude dissenters from our settlement. Of course, nothing could be more preposterous. What we meant was to impress the colony in its origin with a strong church of England character. This was done by the simple but effectual expedient of appropriating one third of the original land fund to church purposes, but this was of course a voluntary system.”

Thus New Zealand stands at present. The lonely island of the Southern Ocean approached only fifty years ago with awe by the few adventurous whalers which dared its unknown coasts and harbours, now teems with English colonists. The dreaded New Zealander has forsaken his savage haunts and ferocious practices, and may be seen “clothed and in his right mind,” and sitting to learn at the feet of some teacher of “the truth as it is in Jesus.” The face of the country has undergone a corresponding change. And in many places, the scene is such as to force the tears from the[Pg 310] eye of the self-exiled settler; the village spire and the church-going bell reminding him of home. What the future may be, we shall not even hazard a conjecture. Let it be enough to say that a mighty change has already been accomplished, and that its foundations were laid, and the work itself effected more than by any other man, by Samuel Marsden.

APPENDIX II.

At the period of Mr. Marsden’s decease, the Tahitian mission, over which he had watched with parental solicitude from its infancy, presented an aspect even more cheering than that of New Zealand. Idolatry had fallen; its idols were utterly abolished; they had found their way to the most ignoble uses, or to the museums of the curious, or those of the various missionary societies in Great Britain. So complete was their destruction that natives of Tahiti have actually visited the museum of the London Missionary Society within the last few years, and there seen, for the first time in their lives, a Tahitian idol. But a dark cloud already skirted the horizon, and the infant church was soon to pass through the purifying furnace of a long, relentless, wearying, and even bitter persecution.

The revolution of 1830 had placed Louis Philippe on the throne of France. During the earlier years of his reign, the church of Rome was deprived of much of that power and dignity which it had enjoyed under the elder Bourbons. As to any hold on the affections of the people of France, this it seldom boasted,—certainly not within the last hundred years. Yet the crafty king of the French was not unwilling to give to his restless priesthood the opportunities both of employment and renown in foreign parts; especially if in doing so he could extend his own power, and add a wreath to that national glory so dear to Frenchmen.[Pg 312] The priests were therefore instructed to direct their attention to the South Sea Islands. Animated partly by hatred to England, they succeeded in effecting a settlement in the Society Islands. The first of them, who arrived there, called Columban (though his original name was Murphy), came in rather strange guise. “He was clad like a man before the mast, smoked a short pipe, and at first was mistaken for what he appeared to be. He had an old English passport, and among other pious tricks, endeavoured to make use of the lion and the unicorn, to prove to the natives that he was sent by the king of Great Britain.”[L] Two others, Caret and Laval, arrived soon afterwards. The law of the island forbade foreigners to reside without obtaining the sanction of the queen. The priests, accordingly, when their arrival became known, were ordered to depart. They refused; comparing the Protestant missionaries to Simon Magus, and claiming for themselves the exclusive right to instruct the Tahitian people. After some delay, however, they left, and went to the Grambier Islands. Captain Lord E. Russell, then with his ship of war at the island, publicly declared, that “if the priests had remained in the country, anarchy and confusion, disastrous to the island, would have inevitably ensued.” This was in December, 1836.

In September, 1837, M. Montpellier, accompanied by Murphy-Columban, arrived at Tahiti. He was followed in 1838 by Captain Du Petit Thouars in the frigate Venus, who made no secret in avowing to our English officers that he was looking out for a suitable island on which to hoist the French flag for the purpose, he added, of forming a penal settlement. [Pg 313]Returning to Paris, Thouars was raised to the rank of rear-admiral, and sent back to the Pacific with his flag in La Reine Blanche on a secret expedition. He seized on two of the Marquesas Islands, built a fort on each, and garrisoned them with four hundred men. He now wrote home, demanding thrice that number of troops and four ships of war for the maintenance of his conquest; but he had further objects in view. False representations had probably been made to the French government with regard to the removal of Caret and Laval; and Captain Du Petit Thouars was instructed to demand satisfaction at Tahiti for injuries done to French subjects. A desire of conquest no doubt inflamed Guizot the French minister—alas! that a Protestant should thus have tarnished his fame—as well as his royal master; but hatred of Protestantism had its full share in these nefarious proceedings.

One M. Henicy, who accompanied the Antoine French frigate to Tahiti, in the summer of 1839, thus writes of the English missionaries: “Ferocious oppressors, shameless monopolizers, trafficking in the word of God, they have procured for themselves a concert of curses. Their ministers are found to be vile impostors.” Caret, Murphy, and the other priests now returned to Tahiti. A French consul was appointed, a worthless, profligate man; he professed, however, to be a zealous friend of the true faith, anxious for missionary labourers to convert the deluded Tahitian Protestants. Very little progress, however, could be made in this spiritual work; the natives obstinately preferred sermons to masses, and possessed so little taste as to reject pictures and rosaries while they still read their Bibles. It was[Pg 314] evident that efforts of a more strenuous kind, though, such as the church of Rome is never unwilling to resort to when persuasion fails, must be tried. And now it was announced that the island was placed under the protection of France; to this arrangement, it was pretended, the chiefs of Tahiti and the queen herself had consented; nay, that they had solicited the protection of France. This unblushing falsehood was immediately exposed, and we now know, from queen Pomare herself, that all the proceedings in this disgraceful affair had their origin in fraud and treachery. They were chiefly carried out by the French consul, who is accused of having, under false pretences, prevailed on certain chiefs of the island to affix their signatures, in the name of the queen, to a document, the object of which was to induce the king of the French to take Tahiti under his protection, the pretence being grounded on a false statement, which accused some native chiefs, and the representatives of other nations, of bad conduct and various crimes. When the queen was apprised of this document, she called a council of her chiefs, with an assembled multitude of natives and foreigners; and, in the presence of the British, French, and American consuls, denied all knowledge of it, as also did the chiefs themselves who signed it. They declared that the French consul brought it to them in the night, and that they put their names to it without knowing what it contained. The governor, being one of the persons imposed upon, wrote to the British consul, Mr. Cunningham, declaring that the parties subscribing did not know what were the contents of the letter which the French consul brought them to sign, and that they affixed their names to it, as it were, in the dark. The translator also affirmed that it must[Pg 315] have been written by some person not a Tahitian; its idiom being foreign, its orthography bad, words misapplied, and the handwriting even foreign.

But the most convincing evidence of the forgery was the declaration of two of the chiefs who signed the document, Tati and Ulami, to the following effect: “That all men may know, We, who have signed our names hereunto, clearly and solemnly make known and declare, as upon oath, that the French consul did wholly dictate and write the letter, said to be written by the queen Pomare and her governors, requesting protection of the king of the French. Through fear we signed it. It was in his own house, and in the night time, that the document was signed by us. And we signed it also because he said, If you will sign your names to this, I will give you one thousand dollars each when the French admiral’s ship returns to Tahiti.

This disgraceful plot was carried on in the absence of the queen. She was no sooner made acquainted with it, than she addressed a short and dignified protest and remonstrance to the queen of Great Britain, the president of the United States, and the king of the French. Few diplomatic notes are more worthy of a place in history than that which was addressed to Louis Philippe.

[Pg 316]But the French consul proceeded to form a provisional government of three persons, placing himself at the head of it as consul-commissary of the king. The triumvirate behaved with the greatest insolence, not only to the poor queen, but even to the British flag. Captain Sir T. Thompson, with the Talbot, lay in the harbour. The queen arrived and hoisted the Tahitian flag, which the Talbot saluted. A letter from the consul-commissary and the two French officials with whom he was associated was addressed as a protest to the gallant captain, “holding him responsible to the king of the French, his government and nation, for the consequences of such disrespect, and for a measure so hostile towards France.” Sir Thomas knew his duty too well to answer the affront, or in any way to notice it; but he could only look on with silent sorrow and disgust, he had no power to interfere. The queen also received an insolent letter from the consul; he even forced himself into her presence, and behaved in a rude and disrespectful manner. “He said to me,” she writes, in a letter to the captain of the Talbot, “shaking his head at me, throwing about his arms, and staring fiercely at me, ‘Order your men to hoist the new flags, and that the new government be respected.’ I protested against this conduct, and told him I had nothing more to say to him.” Bereft of other hope, the insulted and greatly injured Pomare wrote a most touching and pathetic letter to queen Victoria. It was published in the newspapers, and went to the heart of every man and woman in Britain who had a heart to feel for dignity and virtue in distress, “Have compassion on me in my present trouble, in my affliction and great helplessness. Do not cast me away; assist me quickly,[Pg 317] my friend. I run to you for refuge, to be covered, under your great shadow, the same as afforded to my fathers by your fathers, who are now dead, and whose kingdoms have descended to us.” She explains how her signature was obtained. “Taraipa (governor of Tahiti) said to me, ‘Pomare, write your name under this document (the French deed of protection); if you don’t sign your name you must pay a fine of 10,000 dollars, 5000 to-morrow and 5000 the following day; and should the first payment be delayed beyond two o’clock the first day, hostilities will be commenced, and your country taken from you. On account of this threat,” says the queen, “against my will I signed my name. I was compelled to sign it, and because I was afraid; for the British and American subjects residing in my country in case of hostilities would have been indiscriminately massacred. No regard would have been paid to parties.”

There was no exaggeration in this pathetic statement; it is confirmed by a letter—one of the last he ever wrote—from John Williams, the martyr missionary, who called at Tahiti, March 1839, on his last fatal voyage to the New Hebrides. “You will doubtless see by the papers the cruel and oppressive conduct of the French. A sixty-gun frigate has been sent here to chastise the queen and people of Tahiti for not receiving the Roman Catholic priests; and the captain demanded 2000 dollars (10,000?) to be paid in twenty-four hours, or threatened to carry devastation and death to every island in the queen’s dominion. Mr. Pritchard and some merchants here paid the money and saved the lives of the people. The French would only hear one side of the question, but demanded four things within twenty-four hours: 2000[Pg 318] dollars (10,000), a letter of apology to the French king, a salute of twenty-one guns, and the hoisting of the French flag.”

In short, the island became a French dependency, and the poor queen was left with the mere shadow of her former sovereignty. And so it remains to this day. A strong feeling of indignation was aroused in England. Missionary meetings, particularly a noble one at Leeds, were held, pledging themselves to do all in their power to induce our government to exert its legitimate influence with the government of France to restore to the queen of Tahiti her just independence, and to all classes of her subjects their civil rights and religious freedom. But the English government was either infatuated or afraid. Lord Aberdeen, secretary of state for colonial affairs, stated in the House of Lords that, “although he was not sufficiently informed of the precise grounds upon which the French government had acted, or of the complaints made against the authorities in those islands which had led to the convention; yet he had no apprehension as to the establishment of the French in those seas, nor that our commercial or political interests would be affected by it.” He stated that “he had received the most unqualified assurance that every degree of protection and encouragement would be afforded to the British missionaries residing in those islands; that in granting the protectorship to the French king, it had been stipulated that all the places of worship at present existing would receive protection, and that the fullest liberty would be given to the missionaries to exercise their functions.” And he concluded by saying, “that he reposed the fullest confidence, not only in the king of the French himself,[Pg 319] but in the minister, who at this moment was the principal adviser of that monarch.” But a righteous God looked on. This king was driven from his throne, and died an exile in England; while his minister, M. Guizot, who sacrificed his Protestantism to his ambition in this matter, after escaping with difficulty in 1848, from a mob who would have torn him to pieces, saw himself compelled to give up for ever all hope of recovering power in France.

From that time to the present all political power and influence has centred in the French governors, who have been sent out from Europe, and their subordinate officers. Pomare still lives, revered by her people, but without being able to exercise any one independent act of sovereignty; and the native chiefs and governors who formerly took a prominent part in all public affairs, and in their respective districts possessed great influence, are without a vestige of authority, except in those instances in which they have been induced to accept office under the French governor. In 1842, a treaty, so called, was framed, which did indeed provide for “the freedom of religious worship, and especially that the English missionaries shall continue in their labours without molestation.” “The same shall apply,” says its fifth article, “to every other form of worship: no one shall be molested or constrained in his belief.” But this treaty was probably intended only to cajole those whom it could not intimidate, and in practice it is a mere dead letter. The treaty itself is brief and informal, and evidently drawn up in haste, or perhaps with a view, from the absence of precision in its language, to provide for its more easy violation. Yet if the language in which it is couched conveys any meaning[Pg 320] the treaty provides that the people of the island, and the English missionaries in the prosecution of their labours amongst them, shall continue to enjoy unrestricted religious liberty. Now it might be urged, and with some plausibility, by the French authorities in Tahiti, that the people are still allowed, as heretofore, to attend their public worship, and to retain their Bibles and Christian books. They might even maintain, that although a number of Romish priests, with a bishop at their head, have been thrust upon the island, no Protestant missionary has been expelled by the act of the authorities. The substantial truth of these statements cannot be denied, and yet there is abundant evidence that the clauses of the treaty guaranteeing the religious liberty of the islanders and the missionaries have, for every practical purpose, been palpably and grossly violated. The places of worship have not indeed been closed, but the English missionaries have, from time to time, been placed under such severe restrictions that four of their number, finding themselves entirely debarred from the free exercise of their ministry, left the island in 1852. There are at present but two missionaries remaining. One of these is solely engaged in the operations of the press, but without permission to preach to the people; and the other—far advanced in age—is merely permitted, by a kind of sufferance, to remain at his post, and to minister to his own flock, though prohibited from extending his labours to other districts. So far as the churches and congregations scattered over the island are still supplied with the means of religious instruction, it is by the agency of natives, many of whom were formerly trained to the work by the missionaries. But these native preachers are subject to[Pg 321] the constant inspection and interference of the authorities, and they hold their offices solely by sufferance. It will thus be seen, that although the English missionaries have not been forcibly ejected from the island, the object aimed at by the French authorities has, through the artful policy they have adopted, been effectually attained. The missionaries have been silenced, disowned, and cast aside.

In pursuance of the same cautious and subtle policy, the French rulers have not ventured to excite or irritate the people by sanctioning any hasty measures for enforcing conformity to the Roman Catholic faith; still they have encouraged the formation of elementary schools, in which the young people are taught by priests appointed by the government, and everything is done to give undue importance to these schools, so that the pupils taught in them may, at the periodical examinations, appear to more advantage than those under native masters.

Notwithstanding the prevalence of a system so calculated to ensnare and mystify the minds of a simple unsuspicious people, it is a most remarkable and gratifying fact that instances of apostasy to Romanism have been exceedingly rare, and that the bulk of the people continue stedfast in their attachment to the pure Scriptural truths taught them by the missionaries. To account for this it should be borne in mind that the churches and congregations still assemble as heretofore for Divine worship under native pastors, some of whom are known to be pious, devoted, and well qualified men. Then again, through the active and efficient agency of the Rev. W. Howe, who, though prohibited from preaching, still remains in charge of the mission press at Papeete, the native pastors and people have[Pg 322] been well supplied with religious books. And it is further to be noted that the natives generally are amply provided with copies of the sacred Scriptures in their own language, which will no doubt, in the good providence of God, prove an effectual safeguard against popish error and superstition. In the year 1847, five thousand copies of the entire Tahitian Bible, revised by the Rev. Messrs Howe and Joseph, and generously provided by the British and Foreign Bible Society, were sent out in the missionary ship John Williams for circulation in Tahiti and the other islands of the Society group; and again, in 1852, three thousand copies of the New Testament were despatched to Tahiti, chiefly for the use of schools.

In proof that the social and political troubles of the island have not had the effect of diminishing the number of its Christian population, the following most satisfactory statement, furnished by Mr. Howe, dated 11th July, 1856, may be adduced.

Of the kind of annoyance to which the missionaries are exposed, and of the influences which are brought to bear against them, the reader will be able to judge after perusing the account of a prosecution lately instituted by the Romish bishop against the Rev. Mr. Howe. In the autumn of 1855, the Roman Catholic bishop having issued a catechism in which the doctrines and superstitions of Popery were dogmatically stated, and Protestantism as grossly misrepresented, Mr. Howe felt constrained, by a sense of Christian fidelity, to publish in reply a firm but temperate refutation. For this publication a criminal action was commenced against him by the bishop; but so vexatious and unfounded were the charges that the legal officer of the government, on whom it devolved to prosecute, though urged by the governor, declined to bring the case into court, for which he was suspended from his office; and when at length the case was carried before the proper tribunal, the charges against our missionary were dismissed. But the bishop, notwithstanding his signal discomfiture, was not to be diverted from his object; he determined to renew the contest, in the hope that by a change of tactics his[Pg 324] ultimate object might be secured. The criminal prosecution already described was brought to a termination in December. On the following 15th of March, Mr. Howe received notice that his inveterate opponent had entered a civil action against him; and although the charges brought forward were essentially the same, they were put into such a shape, and contained statements so grossly exaggerated, that in order to meet them Mr. Howe was compelled to remodel his reply.

After various delays, the trial at length commenced, in the court of First Instance, on the 28th April, 1856, and in proof of the malevolence by which the bishop was actuated, it may be stated that he demanded 30,000 francs damages, the suppression of the Tatara-taa,[M] and that Mr. Howe should pay all the expenses of the courts, and also for 2000 copies of the judgment for distribution.

The following is a summary of the proceedings, which excited the liveliest interest in the island, both among the natives and the foreign residents.

“My pleadings,” writes Mr. Howe, “were so successful that the court declared itself incompetent to judge the case, and fined his lordship 100 francs, and condemned him to all the expenses of that court and those of the preceding chambers.

“The judgment was read on the 3rd of May. On the 10th I received notice that the bishop had appealed to the Imperial Tribunal, and demanded that the previous judgment should be rescinded.

“This tribunal met on the 16th, when I objected to one of the judges, giving as my reasons that an [Pg 325]intimacy existed between him and the bishop, which rendered his sitting as a judge in the case illegal. My objection was sustained by the court.

“On the 17th, I objected to his lordship’s advocate, as being under the sentence of banishment for political offences, and by which he had forfeited his civil rights. This was also sustained by the court.

“On the 26th, the bishop himself appeared to plead his own cause, and he likewise objected to one of the judges, but his objection was overruled. Suffice it to say, that after having made several unsuccessful attempts to prove my defence unsound, the bishop beat a retreat, and said that if I would consent to submit my cause to arbitration he would withdraw the action. I demanded that his cause, to which this is an answer, should be submitted to the same test, and he consented.

“The court then retired, and on its return announced its judgment to be, that the decisions of the previous courts were sustained, and that the bishop should pay all the expenses of this appeal, as well as the expenses of the previous courts. By this step his lordship cannot appeal again, either to the administration here, or to the Court of Cassation in France.”

It is gratifying to learn, that through this long and painful affair, our missionary not only had the countenance of the British and American consuls, and the fervent prayers of the native converts, both in public and private, but that even the French officers, greatly to their honour, openly expressed their sympathy.

In order more fully to appreciate the result of this protracted contest, it should be borne in mind that the real point at issue was, whether the cause of Protestant Christianity, as represented by Mr. Howe,[Pg 326] should be permitted to hold a footing in the island; that Mr. Howe stood alone, unsustained, excepting by a stedfast confidence in the justice of his cause, and the generous aid and sympathy of friends, French, English, and native, who rallied round him in the time of need; that his potent adversary could reasonably calculate on the countenance and encouragement of the authorities, who, as Frenchmen and Roman Catholics, would naturally be disposed to favour the interests of their own church, and to repress what they had been taught to regard as heresy. But in the providence of God, the presiding judges of the French tribunals before which the cause was heard magnanimously regardless of all prejudices on the score of nationality or religion, delivered a judgment which, while completely exculpating the accused, reflected the highest honour upon their own discernment, impartiality, and justice. While, therefore we devoutly recognise the hand of God so conspicuously manifest in overruling and directing this trial, or rather series of trials, to so merciful an issue, we would add the expression of our hope and belief that so long as the cause of Protestant Christianity is represented in Tahiti by men like-minded with Mr. Howe, and so long as the courts of justice on the island are presided over by men who, without fear or favour, dispense their judgments in accordance with the principles of truth and equity, the light of the gospel, which has for so many years made glad the hills and valleys of Tahiti, can never be extinguished.

FOOTNOTES:

[L] Wilkes’s Tahiti, etc.

[M] The native name of the publication issued by Mr. Howe, in refutation of the bishop’s catechism; which the latter charged to be libellous.

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WATER FROM THE WELL-SPRING, for the Sabbath Hours of Afflicted Believers. By Edward Bickersteth, M.A. Royal 18mo. 2s. cloth boards.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Missing punctuation has been added and obvious punctuation errors have been corrected.

Alternate spellings have been retained.

Illustrations have been moved so as not interrupt the flow of the text. Page references have been removed in the Table of Contents. Appropriate links have been added to the illustrations.

The following printer errors have been corrected:

Page vi: "The Bay of Islands, New Zealand (_Engraving_)" added to the Table of Contents.

Page 11: "aud" changed to "and" (Discovery and early History of).

Page 25: "Shoolhouse" changed to "Schoolhouse" (breaking and entering Schoolhouse at Kissing Point).

Page 84: "set set" changed to "set" (in fact set on foot).

Page 256: "misssionaries" changed to "missionaries" (the advice of the faithful missionaries).

Page 305: "asistant" changed to "assistant" (three native assistant ministers).

Page 306: "Cantrebury" changed to "Canterbury" (The Canterbury Association).

Page 330: "copions" changed to "copious" (a copious ANALYSIS, Notes, and Indexes.)

MEMOIRS OF The Life and Labours OF THE REV. SAMUEL MARSDEN, OF PARAMATTA, SENIOR CHAPLAIN OF NEW SOUTH WALES; AND OF HIS EARLY CONNEXION WITH THE MISSIONS TO NEW ZEALAND AND TAHITI.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

CONTENTS.

LIFE OF THE REVEREND SAMUEL MARSDEN.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

APPENDIX I.

APPENDIX II.

PUBLICATIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.

BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS.

NEW EDUCATIONAL SERIES.

BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL WORKS.

MEMOIRS
OF
The Life and Labours
OF THE
REV. SAMUEL MARSDEN,
OF PARAMATTA,
SENIOR CHAPLAIN OF NEW SOUTH WALES;
AND OF HIS EARLY CONNEXION WITH THE MISSIONS TO NEW ZEALAND AND TAHITI.

LIFE
OF
THE REVEREND SAMUEL MARSDEN.

PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.